Scarlet Hollow raises the standard for what RPGs where ch...

What’s Happening

So basically The horror RPG Scarlet Hollow avoids easy answers and makes your choices matter in ways you can’t easily call right or wrong Follow Followed Like Thread Link copied to clipboard Add us on By Josh Broadwell Published Apr 10, 2026, 2:30 PM EDT Gaming Scarlet Hollow pushes the boundaries of RPGs uncomfortable The future of RPGs lies in an unlikely place Image: Black Tabby Games The horror RPG Scarlet Hollow wasn’t the game Black Tab Howard and Tony Howard-Arias initially set out to make.

Like impressive the Princess before it, the team viewed Scarlet Hollow as a warm-up act for the as-yet-unannounced game they fr want to make, one day. Yet five years after the game’s first chapter shipped, it’s raising the standard for what RPGs can, and should, achieve in their storytelling. (yes, really)

“Neither of us knew what we were going to do next with our careers,” Howard-Arias tells Polygon over a Zoom call.

The Details

“I had been in media and tech spaces, and I’d just shut down a startup I’d been working on with a couple of friends. We were building volunteer organizing software for nonprofits who, it turns out, have no money and don’t like using software.

” “I wasn’t in love with my next book,” Howard, an artist and graphic novelist, says. “A lot of my work was kind of kid-focused.

Why This Matters

And I fr like horror, I fr like complicated subject material, and I wanted to continue to pursue that. So we basically just turned to each other one day, after having conversations with friends of ours about visual novels, and we’re like, ‘Well, why don’t we try one of those? ’ And then almost ASAP, Scarlet Hollow became a thing.

The gaming community has been watching developments like this closely.

The Bottom Line

” Image: Black Tabby Games Scarlet Hollow follows a young adult visiting their family home in rural North Carolina, initially to attend a funeral before things quickly go off the rails. It’s technically a visual novel, though Howard-Arias says that under the hood, it functions like a traditional RPG.

Is this a W or an L? You decide.