The Blair Witch game that's recently been announced by Bloober Team, the developers of Layers of Fear and Observer, is going to be markedly different from their previous offerings, in both plot and gameplay details, far as we can tell.
According to a recent interview, we should expect a storyline affected by time-loops in some manner, which may well make for a very interesting twist on the usual Blair Witch horror setups. Furthermore, the game will contain Alien Isolation-inspired combat!
Note that the Alien Isolation comparison hasn't yet been made by developers themselves, but their recent interview with Bloody Disguisting does paint a remarkably familiar picture: "We are convinced that to create a truly horrifying horror experience in a video game you have to make the players feel vulnerable. When introducing new encounter mechanics we don’t really want to change that. What we want to do is to diversify gameplay mechanics."
The point of combat, then, will be to defend yourself in an effort to escape, rather than outright killing enemies left and right: "we try to design it in such a way that it still feels as you’re a prey not a hunter."
As for the time-loops, they won't be of the Groundhog Day type, but rather something far more sinister. What sort of take on time-travel might the developers have this time around, we do not know, but given their pedigree, we've got high expectations.
