Most Papers Please-likes that I’m aware of tend to all have a throughline in being 2D. That’ll for sure be because one, it’ll be easier to make and two, most derivative works don’t exactly move that far away from their source of inspiration. That isn’t so for Dreadwoods Gatekeeper however, an old timey one of those which positions you as a gatekeeper at an outpost where you’re all by your lonesome, bar all the travellers and foul that turn up. Also I think there’s monsters.

As a titular gatekeeper, you have been put up in the titular Dreadwoods region, a place where things aren’t quite right. During the day, it’s up to you to see all manner of duties befitting a gatekeeper. That means in instances where someone rocks up with a travel permit that has a forged stamp, you turn them away, even if it’s pissing it down (or you could let them in and break the rules, presumably resulting in some kind of consequences).

On another occasion you might be offered a bribe to ignore all the weapons in the back of a wagon that aren’t allowed. Or you may find that someone is meant to have vegetables, but instead has a bunch of chickens, which you then take, and, oh, of course they need to pay tax on the chickens too. You kind of suck! Outside of that, you also have to see to cleaning and repairing the building the gate is attached to. Work kind of sucks!

And then there’s the night portion, where it all gets a bit foggy, and bloody, and someone paints “leave” on the side of the wall, all of which is obviously ominous and not very friendly at all. Not entirely sure what’ll actually happen here, but given that you can equip yourself with a spear, it won’t exactly be a tea party. Dreadwoods Gatekeeper doesn’t have a release date just yet, but you can wishlist it on Steam in the meantime.