Silent Highway is a newly introduced Steam horror recreation centered on a taxi driver working in Japan’s distant forest area notorious for suicides. The setting of the upcoming title, which is presently concentrating on a 2026 Steam launch, shares some similarities with one of many extra polarizing Deadly Body video games in recent times.
Silent Highway is the most recent title from Endflame, an indie studio based mostly out of Catalonia, Spain. Based in 2019, the corporate is greatest identified for its debut title, Ikai, a 2022 psychological horror expertise set in feudal Japan, starring a priestess scuffling with ghosts of her previous. Whereas its important reception was blended, Ikai has developed a status as one of many scariest modern horror games inspired by Japanese folklore, not least due to its deal with vulnerability and diverse monster designs.
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Silent Highway Turns Night time-Shift Taxi Driving Into Nightmare Gasoline
Endflame is now taking one other stab at a Japanese-style horror recreation, however this time, it opted for a contemporary setting. The studio’s newly introduced Silent Highway casts gamers as a taxi driver working in a haunted forest area seemingly impressed by Aokigahara, identified within the West because the “Suicide Forest.” As such, Silent Highway shares its setting with Koei Tecmo’s polarizing 2014 survival horror title Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. Whereas driving is the first mode of transportation, gamers can exit the automobile to help passengers coming into or leaving. Based on the developer, stepping outdoors the automobile won’t ever really feel completely protected.
The core gameplay loop of Silent Highway entails ferrying strangers by abandoned villages and fog-covered mountain roads, with every trip performing as a novel psychological check. Via transient conversations, elective stops outdoors the automobile, and environmental cues, Endflame says the forest’s underlying thriller will slowly emerge. The construction is straightforward however doubtlessly well-suited to iteration, giving the developer room to experiment with content material like recurring passengers whose conduct turns into more and more unnerving, finally spiraling into full-blown horror. That form of gradual buildup turning a seemingly mundane setting into something deeply unsettling is a big part of what made Ikai memorable as nicely.
The 34-second video teaser Endflame launched alongside its newest announcement primarily options gameplay footage, utilizing speedy, intermittent cuts to attach scenes that vary from eerie to overtly horrifying, together with a single leap scare that includes what seems to be a ghost that is additionally current within the recreation’s key artwork. If the promo is consultant of the ultimate product, Silent Highway might undertake a restrained tone that prioritizes environment over spectacle, counting on suggestion somewhat than graphic imagery to unsettle gamers as their minds fill within the blanks purposefully created by the sport.
“We’ve all the time beloved Japanese horror; the quiet rigidity, the environment, the way in which it stays with you lengthy after it ends,” Endflame co-founders Laura Ripoll and Guillem Travila stated in a ready assertion. “Silent Highway grew from that love.” The co-founders are describing the upcoming title as a daunting expertise rooted in J-horror sensibilities that “carries one thing deeper beneath the floor.”
We’ve all the time beloved Japanese horror; the quiet rigidity, the environment, the way in which it stays with you lengthy after it ends. Silent Highway grew from that love.
Silent Highway is presently concentrating on a 2026 launch, with Endflame being but to supply a extra slim launch window. A demo is presently within the works, deliberate to debut on the Silent Road Steam page, which simply went dwell, making the sport obtainable for wishlisting. The psychological horror title has to date solely been confirmed for PC. Based mostly on the Spanish developer’s observe document, no extra ports could also be deliberate presently. Silent Highway will mark Endflame’s third title up to now. Aside from Ikai, the developer beforehand additionally made Instants, a comfortable puzzler launched on Steam in June 2025.
