The Mortuary Assistant dev on laying his cancelled Paranormal Activity game to rest, resurrecting it as a Halloween freebie, and a potential return to his biggest game

Developer Brian Clarke has released *Playable Archive*, a free Halloween game built from a short section of his cancelled *Paranormal Activity: Threshold*. The release gives players a glimpse of the larger horror game he had spent years developing, and lets some of that work reach an audience despite the project’s cancellation.

Clarke was approached by publisher DreadXP after *The Mortuary Assistant* launched in 2022, and the game was announced in November last year. His plan was to follow a couple moving into a new home, then shift to a detective reviewing their camcorder footage; the full game would have moved between timelines, with clues in one helping players progress in the other. The released slice runs for about 30 minutes and retains the series’ found-footage style and Clarke’s focus on subtle, story-led scares.