Three Virginians walk into an interview room…

As part of our PAX East 2026 adventure, EiC Will Borger and I sat down with Jade Meadows, the developer of Blue Ridge Hunting. A co-op horror game, BRH is set in the Appalachian mountains and is all about hunting cryptids. Meadows and I live in Virginia currently, and Will is from Virginia, so it seemed cosmically necessary to set up this conversation. With that in mind, readers, check the game out, check the new Kickstarter out, and most importantly, read the interview as follows.

The text, of course, is edited from the original spoken word for clarity and readability.

Lucas White, Skybox Managing Editor: What got my attention is just, oh, that says “Blue Ridge” in the title. I know what that is. I live there. So it piqued my interest naturally. And I saw on your website that you’ve been traveling around and taking pictures and stuff. So do you have a planned route? Or are you filling that out as you go along still?

Jade Meadows, developer, Blue Ridge Hunting: So, we’re gonna have both a story mode and a free play mode. For the story mode, I kind of have planned five chapters that are gonna take place across the Blue Ridge. For free play mode, since we’re doing an early access period, we’re gonna involve the community in that and make decisions on what locations we add, what kind of cryptids we add, that kind of thing.

White: Again, just talking about myself, maybe unnecessarily, but in Charlottesville, that place’s whole personality is, like, we had Thomas Jefferson. And when Blue Ridge comes up, that’s where you go to drink beer. And then we have the Humpback Rocks, the one big trail people talk about. But it’s never occurred to me to think about cryptids, urban myths, stuff like that. So I was wondering how you approach your research.

Meadows: I kind of do research in two parts. The first part is the cryptids and the folklore and stuff. That’s a lot of really small town, like, museums, shops and things, like the Mothman Museum. Doing research there, books, random things like that. And then the other half of the research is into the region itself and people, like you mentioned, I travel a lot. On those trips, I try to make a trip to each location we add in the game and I talk to people there, I talk to the locals, I try to read as much history of the area as I can so that we can do the representation justice in the game.

Will Borger, Skybox Editor-in-Chief: What’s fascinating to me is, like, Virginia as a state and the Blue Ridge as an area and Appalachia have so much folklore and myth and, you know, urban legends. And then it’s got this really rich history, just because of how much important stuff took place in the country in that area. How do you go about making folklore or an urban legend or myth into something that players can interact with? What’s the process of going from, like, hey, we have this really cool thing and now we have to figure out how to put it in the game and let people, you know, go hunt it or try to track it. And how do you manage being true to the thing and honoring it with making it as a game?

Meadows: I’ll say when I started development, there was very little story mode and stuff. I was very much just focused on the cryptids and then the gameplay aspect. Then last year I moved to Virginia, and being able to actually live in the environment the game has set in kind of really, really changed how I looked at the game and how I thought about it. That’s when I really started to write a bunch of stuff for the story mode. I guess my process for that is, I kind of take an existing cryptid or something from the folklore or the region and I try to match it to some kind of historical aspect or some specific area or place that I feel would best represent their struggles. So the cryptids in the game are kind of representative of different towns, and how they’ve struggled over time and the people that live there and things. It’s almost Silent Hill-esque. And so, I kind of take the folklore creature and I try to match it to whatever I think would fit best with it.

White: Do you have any favorite examples? I know you mentioned Mothman earlier, but there’s some that maybe aren’t as well-known that you’ve kind of come across that you think are really interesting?

Meadows: Yeah, so for chapter one, the cryptid enemy is the Sheepsquatch, and when I was researching this creature and kind of the lore behind it, a lot of the sightings have been kind of clustered in southern West Virginia, a big coal area. That was one of the areas I traveled through, and one of the areas that inspired chapter one of the game, which is set in a coal mine. So, having it be organically from this location and being able to go to this place and learn the story of this area, how it developed and how it has fallen out over time as these mines have closed and things, it’s kind of given me a way to connect the cryptid to the story of this place.

Borger: I was looking at the trailer and, and the gameplay that you have on Steam, and the aesthetic is really interesting because it’s kind of, like, low-poly PS1. But it’s also got the detail that you probably wouldn’t see in a PS1 game, right? So can you talk about the aesthetic choices that you made and why you chose to make it look like that, and what that process was like?

Meadows: Well, the game’s been in development for three years now. When I started, I chose PSX just because it was super cheap. I’m not too much of an artist. My background is very much programming. So, for me, what the PSX style kind of allows me to do is, I can really easily throw together models and stuff. I don’t have to take too much time to do it. The fidelity doesn’t really matter and then I’m able to, like, blur and use a lot of post-processing effects and shader effects and technical art and be able to take that aspect and kind of elevate the PSX visuals. So I kind of think about it as, what if we took all the models from these old PlayStation 1-era games? For me, it was a lot inspired by DS games. That’s what I grew up with. It was kind of PS1 style. Basically taking that and applying a modern rendering pipeline to it like we would see in a more contemporary game, and being able to kind of bring it to life and fruition that way.

Borger: It’s interesting from, like, a horror aesthetic too, right, because there’s so many iconic and well-known games starting on PS1, as you mentioned, such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Do you think about that history when you look at the art?

Meadows: I very much do look back. Yeah, Silent Hill 2 is a big inspiration for the game, and I think you can see a lot of elements in that from fog to, you know, just the art aesthetic. I also lifted, or borrowed, I guess, a lot of story elements from Silent Hill. I was really fascinated by how Silent Hill kind of plays with psychology, and the work of Carl Jung and that kind of thing. And, you know, bringing out the subconscious into the real world. And that’s what inspired a lot of the story of Blue Ridge Hunting. It’s kind of connecting that aspect of it to the struggles of the region and bringing it to life through these cryptids.

Borger: Awesome. I did not expect us to be talking about Carl Jung, but I’m right there with you. (Editor’s note: Everything always comes back to Xenogears) I love that.

White: I’m really stuck on your research and traveling and stuff. I just think that’s really fascinating. Is your plan to physically go to every place that’s in the game?

Meadows: That is the goal, yeah. So far I’ve been to, I’m pretty sure, every map that we are working on now, I’ve physically visited. It just kind of gets me a good sense of, you know, the area, something you can’t really get from just Googling photos and things like that. Being able to actually exist in the environment and kind of, like, map it out in my brain in a way kind of helps me bring it to life. And also just being there, you get a lot of inspiration on little things. A lot of little level design inspiration things for it. I’m gonna remake it later on in the engine. Um, being able to experience it myself for even a short time, it gets me a lot of, it gets the gears in my brain turning.

White: So are you utilizing, like, landmarks and things like that? What’s your take as far as accuracy versus kind of playing with things?

Meadows: I try to keep things as accurate as possible, but definitely, there’s some creative liberties because it’s a video game. Some of the environments wouldn’t work too well if they were one-to-one. I try to keep as many landmarks intact as well. The other thing I like to do when I go places is, I like to find signs that are just around town and scan them with my phone. And then I actually import them as a texture into the game. So a lot of the signs that you see in chapter one and in some of the free play maps are actually real photos that I took while I was there. And I think that also helps kind of elevate the realism.

White: That’s really cool. You mentioned earlier, community feedback. How active is that process? What kind of conversations are you having with your community?

Meadows: Very active. I am unfortunately terminally on Discord. Pretty much anything that people post in the game server I see, and I try to incorporate that as much as possible. We’ve been slowly growing a really cool community of people who are actually from the area. And, you know, seeing messages from them, like, how appreciative they are that a game like this exists. That’s, like, really true to an area that they’ve grown up in and that they know and their family lives in, and is really special to them. So, I try to value their feedback the most because I really want to do my depiction of this region justice. And try to make it as, you know, respectful and accurate as possible. And so, I think the feedback from, from people who are actually in this area, the people that I’m covering with this game is some of the most valuable for me.

White: That’s really cool because, I think in horror, it’s very easy to lean on “this is a rural setting, so we’re gonna have the Texas Chainsaw crazy evil redneck family, the mutants and asylum escapees and stuff.” So having that setting treated with legitimacy probably makes people happy.

Meadows: Yeah. I will say, like, when I started development, I sort of had attitudes like that towards this region. It very much kind of felt like an outsider’s perspective. And since moving there last year, it’s really changed how I see the game and the respect I have for Appalachia as an area. I just want to do it justice.

Borger: The region is really old. Not the formation of the Earth old, but from the history that people have lived there for a really long time, right? And you have American tribes that have folklore that come out of the area. And then you have different folklore that was imported by other cultures that came and settled there. And then they brought those traditions with them. And they all kind of intermix and become these things that separate around. I want to ask a design question, because we’ve talked about making the environments and making the history and putting that into the game. When I was looking at the gameplay, it looked like a lot of very slow-paced, very kind of detective work. Like, oh, we’ve got tracks. We’re going to see where that goes. It looks like you have a kind of device, maybe a camera, to follow these things. What do you envision the moment-to-moment experience being like? Is it slow-paced? Is it very deliberate? Or is that kind of the opening part of it and then it gets a little quicker later on? What’s that process, what is it like as a player to play?

Meadows: The game definitely starts as a slow burn for each round. That’s mostly to give players time to focus on the detective aspect. But also just letting the creeping feeling build up in you that you’re not alone out here and at any time now you could see something really strange. Also just having little moments in that kind of quiet period to throw you off. A deer might run by or something that kind of spooks you and you’ll be like, oh, okay, it’s all fine for now. But you know, eventually, you’re gonna hear a stick break or something behind you and it’s not gonna be a deer. So, yeah, I think just kind of letting players simmer in the environment for a little bit before we start to ramp things up is the approach I take to the layout of each round.

White: You mentioned rounds and it’s a co-op game, so just in terms of the video game-ness of it, what is the loop? What’s the goal in terms of the round structure?

Meadows: So the goals are different between story and free play mode. So for story mode, when you go to each location your goal is primarily to kill the cryptid, but also to try to uncover the different story aspects in each level. Each level in story mode has some puzzles for you to solve as you uncover the lore of the area. So you have more story-based objectives. And in free play mode, the goal is very much just to kill the cryptid, and the gameplay is a lot more technical. You get more involved with designing specific traps, lures, trying to figure out a game plan to hunt this thing. So it’s different in each mode, but each gameplay loop kind of ends with you returning back to the cabin, which is your lobby area. Being able to debrief and plan out for your next time, buy some items, upgrade your stuff, that kind of thing. There’s also story elements as well in the cabin segments for story mode. So as you return each time, you’ll get a little bit of dialogue or lore. You’ll be able to meet different people who are, you know, just going to the bar or that kind of thing.

At this point, PR interjects and says, “it might be good to mention the F.E.A.R. AI cryptid thing you’re talking about.” Will lights up like a Christmas tree and says, “this sounds neat!”

Meadows: Uh, I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game F.E.A.R.-

White: Laughter – Oh, just…

Borger: I love F.E.A.R.! I wrote a piece about it, a 20-year anniversary retrospective for Rolling Stone last year on F.E.A.R., like, I love F.E.A.R., please talk to me about F.E.A.R. (Editor’s note: He can’t keep getting away with this!)

Meadows: One of the aspects of that game is the goal-oriented AI, as I’m sure you’re aware of. And I tried to implement that into Blue Ridge Hunting. So, we have this system that tracks each player’s gameplay style. Keeps track of, like, what players they kind of associate with. If they try to, like, split off from the rest of the group in a pair with another person. And we try to generate different moments from that of cryptid encounters and things. Each cryptid is kind of guided by that as, like, an overarching story controller. And then, as well, each cryptid has its own goal-oriented AI. So, it’s able to make decisions based on the current world state or environment. It’s able to determine which player might pose a bigger threat. Like, if a player has a weapon or something. It’s able to make decisions, like, should I go heal myself right now? Should I leave the battle? Or should I engage in fighting with a player? That kind of thing. In addition, each cryptid has different kinds of sensors. So, one of the things in the game is Proximity Voice Chat. It’s a co-op game. But the cryptids can hear you. They can hear you speak and they can also hear all the different sounds that your items make. So, even if you just have your radio on and your friends talking over that. Cryptids can hear that and pick up on that and try to determine where the sound is coming from. So, they’re each able to pick their own goals and make decisions based on what goals they want to prioritize.

Everyone in the room: Saying some variant of “that’s awesome.”

Meadows: I just want to make it feel like, you know, the game’s called Blue Ridge Hunting and you’re trying to hunt this thing. But I want to have moments where it feels almost like you’re being hunted. The cryptids, I want them to feel intelligent and like an actual formidable foe that you have to come up against. Make it capable of thinking and making decisions and keeping track of you and your teammates. Yeah.

Borger: And that’s such an important element of horror, right? Because, yeah, you can kill it, but you’re also going up against something that’s very old and that you don’t entirely understand. Right? And so it has to have that kind of sense of mystique, like it’s beyond you a little bit.

Meadows: Yeah.

White: Actually, this part of the conversation had me thinking – you’re researching the mythology and you’re kind of coming into knowledge about these creatures as myth and through conversations and historical anecdotes, but in the game you kind of have to translate it into a creature that you are interacting with and you’re hunting it, it’s hunting you. How do you translate spoken folklore to giving it a physical presence?

Meadows: When we design each cryptid, I have a really wonderful creature artist that makes all the models. We go through a bunch of different processes of trying to pull reference images, descriptions, that kind of thing, from whatever sources we have. And then my artist, Lily, who does art characters, she draws a concept sheet with a bunch of different variations of the cryptid kind of leaning into different specific tellings and descriptions and whatnot. And then from there we kind of pick whatever we feel fits best the specific art style of whatever region it’s home to. So, like, in free play mode you can find pretty much any of the cryptids in any map, but we try to give them each a home base. So, for Mothman the point plant is a TNT area. For the Sheepsquatch it’s a coal mine. And we try to match their appearance to that specific area.

White: So, in terms of figuring out, okay, how would this thing behave if it was real? Do you kind of have analogs to similar animals? Or do you… are you thinking of, how would this thing act if it was actually in the woods?

Meadows: We kind of mix, like you said, analogs with real animals as well as whatever we can find in folklore stories and things like that. So, for example, Sheepsquatch, we base it a lot on a goat and things like that when we give it actions. And then when we add on different supernatural elements, we try to pull that from folklore and things like that. So, the Sheepsquatch, or actually a better example would be the Mothman, is able to make you hallucinate things. And he can mess with some of your radio and equipment like that. So, we give them abilities that stretch just beyond their physical form, which I think adds to the mystique.

Borger: It’s also going to make it so the way you interact with it over time is going to change, right? Because the first time you run into the Mothman, you’ll be like what is happening? And then if you do it again, you’re going to be like, I know what you’re doing. Right? And you might be better prepared for it. And so your relationship with the cryptids, ideally, and I’m sure you all have thought about this, but it would change over time the more that you see it, right? Where initially it’s like, okay, I don’t know how to deal with this thing. Now I kind of do, now I’m very comfortable, but still it’s an intelligent creature. I have to work around that.

Meadows: Yeah.

Borger: There wasn’t a question. That’s just cool.

Meadows: The other thing I try to do is, my background is programming. So, I try to take specifically the fact that it’s a multiplayer game and use that to our advantage. So, some of the cryptids have abilities to make you see things or mess with you, and it will only affect your specific connection to the server. So, you might see something that no one else in your group can. And so, being able to play with perspective in that way, I think, also adds to the aura of mystery.

Borger: Oh, man, I can just imagine. Like, dude, do you see that? What? There’s nothing there. No, I promise you I saw something, right? And then because you’re, like, you talked about this, the breaking of a stick, right? And then it’s, oh, a deer. But you’ve got yourself in this mindset of, maybe there is something. Maybe they did actually see something and the rest of us just missed it, right? And so…

White: Very F.E.A.R.

Borger: Yeah, it’s very psychological, right? Like, it’s there for a second, and you’re like, wait a minute, did I actually see that? Or it’s… I always found – you mentioned F.E.A.R., so I’m gonna – the scariest stuff in F.E.A.R. for me was the stuff that the game does not draw attention to. Do you remember that room, this is a very specific example, but there’s a room, you’re in this kind of big office lobby, and there’s blood everywhere, and Alma is staring down at you, and the game never draws attention to the fact that she’s there. You just kind of have to look up and be like, oh, she’s there, and then she disappears, right? Do you think about moments like that with the cryptids?

Meadows: Absolutely. The other thing that’s been really fun with that is being able to tie it into the story of the game and the story mode. I think when you’re playing a co-op horror game, being able to rely on your friends kind of takes away from the fear, and so in order to add that back, we need to add boundaries and be able to break you apart as a group. And so being able to play with perspective and what people can see and not see is a good way to kind of break down trust between each player, and that gives me as a designer a lot of things to mess with.

White: Is there anything that caught you off-guard about the way people have played it so far that kind of made you think “oh, that’s interesting.” And then adjust something from there?

Meadows: Yeah, there’s been a lot of people finding different ways to break the game, which is always interesting. But from what I’ve seen, a lot of players try to approach the game like it’s a normal multiplayer game experience, like a Lethal Company or something like that. And so there’s a lot of humor elements in the game that are similar to those other games, and that’s something I kind of take a note of, and I want to be able to play with as well, when it comes to the psychology aspect of the game. Being able to take players’ expectations of what kind of game they think this is, and then turning it on its head, I think, could make for a really cool experience, and that’s kind of my goal with this game.

White: Just to close it out, what’s your call to action? What would you like to point people to? 

Meadows: So, we have a Kickstarter coming out in April. You can follow it at blueridgehunting.com-slash-kickstarter. We’re gonna be running that for a month, and each week during the Kickstarter, we’re going to be doing a cryptid reveal video of each cryptid that’s gonna be available in Chapter one. And the last week of the Kickstarter will be the Six One Indie Showcase, and we’re gonna be showing the game’s free play mode trailer. So, yeah, make sure to follow the Kickstarter and get an email when it goes live.

That’s a wrap! Thanks to Jade for talking with us, and Kyle at Six One for setting up the interview.