Chilla's Art has announced its next horror game, and the premise is exactly the kind of mundane-turned-terrifying concept the Japanese indie studio does best: you shovel snow. For hours. Toward something you probably should not be approaching.
The game is called Snowed Under, and if you've been keeping tabs on snow-themed games lately (like the alpine resort builder Above the Snow), this one sits at the opposite end of the mood spectrum. Where that game is about building something cozy, Snowed Under is about trudging through a frozen world that gets steadily more wrong the further you go.
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What you're actually doing out there
The setup is simple on paper. You're moving through a snowy environment in first person, digging your way forward toward a steel tower in the distance. Along the way, you collect scrap materials scattered across the landscape and use them to upgrade your character's digging strength, stamina, and carry capacity. It's a loop that sounds almost relaxing until you see the screenshots.
Early images reveal what looks like an abandoned train yard, a derelict gas station buried under snow, and a humanoid creature on all fours with a grin that has no business being that wide. Classic Chilla's Art. The studio has built its reputation on starting players somewhere mundane and slowly pulling the floor out from under them, and Snowed Under looks like a confident continuation of that formula.
You're not alone out there, either. Your companion is Kai, described as a loyal friend and a fully interactive NPC. Conversations with Kai appear to be central to the story, with the two of you gradually revealing more about each other and the world around you as you dig deeper. That relationship-driven storytelling angle is a notable addition for a studio whose games often lean heavily on atmosphere over character.
A short, sharp horror experience
Snowed Under is built to be a tight experience, with an estimated play time of 2 to 4 hours. That's consistent with Chilla's Art's broader output, games designed to be played in a single sitting, leaving you unsettled long after the credits roll.
The studio also disclosed its use of AI tools during pre-production, specifically for generating concept art ideas, laying out textures, and creating 3D model blockouts. Here's the thing though: all final in-game assets, promotional images, and thumbnails were created by human artists. The AI use was limited to early-stage planning rather than finished content, which the team was transparent about from the jump.
Snowed Under is currently in development for Windows and has a Steam page live now. No release date has been confirmed yet.
Why this one stands out in Chilla's Art's catalog
The studio has released a steady stream of horror games built around ordinary activities: working a convenience store night shift, riding a train alone, fishing in the dark. Snow shoveling fits that template perfectly. It's repetitive, physically demanding, and deeply familiar to anyone who's lived through a rough winter. Turning that into a horror framework where each shovelful of snow reveals something worse than the last is the kind of concept that sounds obvious in hindsight but takes real craft to execute.
The addition of Kai as a named companion with actual dialogue is worth watching. Chilla's Art games tend to isolate the player, so building a story around a relationship rather than pure environmental dread is a shift. Whether that pays off depends entirely on the writing, and that's something you won't know until you're knee-deep in snow with nowhere to go but forward.
If you want to get ahead on other snow-themed games while waiting, the Above the Snow tips and tricks guide covers the alpine resort management side of winter gaming in solid detail.
