The seatbelt icon has been switched on so would you please stop levitating

Image credit: New Tales

There's been a glut of horror-themed job sims lately, from 2025's atrocious smileorama Hellmart to the recent multiplayer offering Shift At Midnight, in which you try not to endorse the existence of any doppelgangers by accidentally selling them groceries. It's been fun, but friends, we have now gone too far.

Publishers New Tales have just emailed me about Night Plane - a retro-inspired anomaly-spotting game from Liquid Static Studio and Snapping Turtle, in which you are a flight attendant. It's out later this year. A certain Marge Simpson quote comes to mind. Here's the trailer.

Watch on YouTube

Night Plane is set in the year 1999, which is why all the passengers look like they've walked off the set of Bushido Blade ("please check your naginatas into hold baggage"). Your goal is to welcome these sinister PS1 people aboard, check tickets, serve refreshments, stow baggage, and watch out for those who seem a bit wronger than is usual for sinister PS1 people.

During the flight, you'll have to worry about both routine turbulence ("chop", as those cavalier pilots breezily call it) and awful goatmen taking a stroll on the wings, having clearly not paid attention during your cabin safety instructions. "Passengers may require assistance inside the plane, outside the plane, and in places not listed in your training manual," comments the Steam page, which is advertising a playtest.

Plane trips are an infrequent work expectation for games journalists. I've never entirely lost my fear of them. I am not one of those who shrugs off any talk of crashlanding by quoting statistics about malfunctions. I am one of those who chugs miniature bottles of wine while rewatching Spotlight and trying not to think about the 30,000 feet between him and the ground. "We have no business up here", I whisper to my neighbours. "This is the realm of the gods. We must keep very still and quiet lest they notice us. Also, did you ever hear about Climate Change."

I do enjoy the airport part - airports being hyperliminal themeparks, full of exciting moving walkways and coffee shops dotted like villages across an RPG's overworld. I'd live in an airport if I could. Where is my cosy airport colony sim, videogames. Less of this horror garbage, please.

So yes, I guess I'm the perfect target audience for this game. More seriously, I'm interested in how Night Plane might use the occult to think about behavioral and other kinds of profiling during airplane security procedures. It seems more geared toward glitchy jumpscares, but the opportunity is there.