Japanese survival horror Clock Tower is getting an English port 29 years later

Clock Tower is a survival horror point-and-click adventure released in 1995, but only in Japan. Its availability is going to expand next year. WayForward, the studio responsible for the Shantae series and remastering the likes of DuckTales, are bringing the game westward in 2024 with an English translation and new animations.

Clock Tower is about a young woman, Jennifer Simpson, exploring a large manor home while trying to avoid being killed by a “shears-wielding psychopath” called Scissorman. Players control Simpson, who has no weapons with which to fight back, and must find hiding spots and traps around the house to evade the murderer. Let’s call it Wee Man With Big Scissors: Isolation.

The port will be translated into five languages, feature new “motion-comic cutscenes”, save states, and a new animated opening from the project’s creative lead, Mariel Cartwright. Cartwright was previously lead animator on Skullgirls.

Clock Tower was originally developed for the Super Famicon by Human Entertainment, and was directed by Hifumi Kono, who would later lead development on cult classic mech sim Steel Battalion. It also received several sequels – one of which, Clock Tower 2, was released for the PlayStation in Europe in 1998 as simply “Clock Tower”, since we never received the original. There’s also a Clock Tower where I live in Brighton which was built in 1888. Amazing what you can learn on Wikipedia, isn’t it?

Clock Tower’s modernised port will launch on PC in early 2024 via Steam. The project was announced during publisher Limited Run’s recent showcase, during which they also revealed a PC port of the even more horrifying Gex Trilogy.