A new game called There Are No Ghosts At The Grand was revealed by Friday Sundae and Null Games during the Xbox Games Showcase today. In it, players encounter ghosts as they restore an old hotel and uncover the mysteries of a small British town. Oh, and it’s a musical too. The result is a game that resembles a blend of House Flipper, Luigi’s Mansion, Blue Prince, and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, making it one of the funkier reveals of this showcase.
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There Are No Ghosts At The Grand’s premise is similar to Blue Prince’s narrative hook, in that players inherit an old building from a relative and must discover its hidden secrets within 30 days and 30 nights. But while Blue Prince was a roguelike puzzle game, the gameplay of Friday Sundae’s debut title can’t be as neatly placed into one genre. It’s a story-driven game that can be beaten in about 10 hours, telling a story with multiple endings that players can influence depending on their choices. However, it’s also much more than that.
Players can explore the quaint British town in which The Grand is located, interacting with many of its residents. That aspect of gameplay is where I draw the Everybody’s Gone to Rapture comparison from. The twist is that characters will sometimes start to sing, transforming There Are No Ghosts At The Grand into an interactive musical where players have to make choices or complete certain gameplay tasks as they are sung to. Friday Sundae recorded all of this music themselves, forming a band to do so.
The primary way players advance through the story is by renovating the grand. During the day, players use a variety of power tools to clean, renovate, and place furniture in different areas of the hotel in a very freeform way. Doing so will reveal different mysteries and secrets, though, and at night, some spooky ghosts will overrun The Grand, and players will fight to survive using those same power tools. If you’ve ever wished House Flipper or Powerwash Simulator had a more meaningful narrative, then There Are No Ghosts At The Grand might be for you.
The horror seems to be more in the vein of Luigi’s Mansion in tone than Resident Evil Village. That said, There Are No Ghosts At The Grand might psychologically mess with players’ heads a bit, with a developer admitting in a preview event attended by ComicBook that Chris David, the game’s main character, is an unreliable narrator with ulterior motives that even players won’t know about from the start. There are still many mysteries to uncover with this game, so I’m excited to learn more as we approach its launch.
There Are No Ghosts At The Grand will be released for PC and Xbox Series X|S sometime in 2026. It will be available as part of the Xbox Game Pass catalog from day one as well.
