The Conjuring: Unspoken Turns Your Phone Into a Spirit Box on October 13
The Conjuring: Unspoken launches through Netflix on October 13, with Supermassive Games turning your smartphone into the paranormal equipment you use to investigate a haunted English inn. Your phone becomes an EMF reader, infrared camera and spirit box, while your dialogue choices can change how the story develops.
Which is probably the first time checking your phone during a horror story might actually make things worse.
You play demonologist Francesca Noakes, who is called to England's Red Lion Inn after the Cooper family starts experiencing the sort of paranormal activity that would make most normal people leave the keys on the reception desk and sleep in the car.
Instead, naturally, we investigate.
If your ideal evening involves pointing electronics at an empty room until the empty room answers back, Phasmophobia is the obvious next stop. Different ghosts, same terrible instinct to investigate instead of leaving.
Your phone is the part I actually find interesting
A Conjuring game made by Supermassive already makes sense. They're the Until Dawn studio.
Cinematic horror, branching choices, people making decisions while something horrible waits nearby. Nobody had to spend three days in a meeting inventing that combination.
The phone is stranger.
The game runs on a supported television or computer through Netflix, while your smartphone acts as the controller and your paranormal equipment. You can use it as an infrared camera to look for cold spots and supernatural activity, an EMF reader and a spirit box.
And this is where the idea starts becoming properly clever. Phones have spent years being one of the easiest ways to murder horror tension. Film gets uncomfortable, you look at your phone. Somebody hears footsteps upstairs, you look at your phone. Demonic nun appears at the end of a corridor, apparently this is a good moment to find out whether somebody liked the photograph of your dinner.
Unspoken takes that little emergency exit and bricks it up.
Now you have to look at the phone.
You're sitting there staring at the haunted room on the television, then your little handheld ghost detector starts telling you something is wrong, so you voluntarily look away from the haunted room to investigate the haunted room.
That seems unwise.
Which, for horror, is excellent.
There is also something much more convincing about using an actual phone as a spirit box than having Francesca hold one on-screen while you press X on a controller. You're already holding the bloody thing. Supermassive might as well put the ghost in it.
Of course somebody eventually decides to hold a séance
The story follows Francesca investigating the Cooper family's haunting at the Red Lion Inn.
Things have already gone considerably beyond "there's a funny noise in the pipes." Dolls disappear. One of the daughters starts hearing her dead mother's voice. A ballerina music box begins doing things on its own.
Then a séance enters the story.
I will never understand this particular branch of horror logic.
You've established that something dead appears to be communicating with the family. You're worried about it. People are frightened. Strange objects have started freelancing.
So naturally the next item on the agenda is:
let's improve the signal.
There has presumably never been a séance where everyone finished, looked around the table and said, "Good. That seems to have calmed the situation down."
The supernatural threat includes Vinea, a demon that feeds on grief, and Florrie, a ghost based on English folklore. Dialogue decisions can affect the story, which is familiar territory for Supermassive and probably exactly where they should be.
Give me an unsettling room, several bad options and enough time to convince myself I've chosen the sensible one. Then ruin everything. You also don't need to know The Conjuring films beforehand. Unspoken tells its own story, although people familiar with the movies should recognise some connections.
Good.
Being terrorised by a haunted music box should not require six hours of franchise homework and a wiki open on another tab.
Netflix might actually suit this unusually well
The stranger bit is how you play it.
The Conjuring: Unspoken launches through Netflix on October 13. You'll need Netflix's supported TV or browser setup and your smartphone. This means the first monster you'll encounter may be device compatibility. Your television being perfectly capable of streaming The Conjuring does not automatically mean Netflix will allow you to enter one yourself and start waving ghost equipment around. You'll want to check whether Games appears in the Netflix app on your TV, or use a supported browser setup on PC.
But once that administrative exorcism is complete, this particular game makes a surprising amount of sense on Netflix. A cinematic Supermassive horror game already belongs on the big screen. Your phone is already sitting next to you because apparently modern humanity cannot survive nine consecutive minutes without knowing whether somebody has sent a thumbs-up emoji.
So instead of pretending that phone is a slightly terrible Xbox controller, Unspoken gives it an actual reason to exist inside the horror.
The haunted environment stays on the television.
The equipment stays in your hands.
And suddenly that second screen, normally the thing you use to escape the scary bit, becomes part of the scary bit.
That's a bloody good idea.
Whether it survives beyond the initial novelty is the big unknown. The ghost-hunting tools still need to feel meaningful once you've scanned your twentieth room. Dialogue choices need to matter enough that you're making decisions, not selecting which flavour of inevitable disaster arrives next.
We can't know that yet.
But six days before launch, I don't really need Unspoken to prove the entire game.
Supermassive has made a Conjuring story where my television contains the haunted house and my phone becomes the equipment I use to talk to whatever is inside it.
I'm interested.
And if the spirit box starts saying my name, I'm cancelling Netflix.
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The Conjuring: Unspoken FAQ
When does The Conjuring: Unspoken release?
The Conjuring: Unspoken launches on October 13, 2026 through Netflix.
Who is making The Conjuring: Unspoken?
It is developed by Supermassive Games, the studio behind Until Dawn.
How do you play The Conjuring: Unspoken?
The game runs on a supported TV or computer through Netflix, while your smartphone acts as the controller and paranormal equipment, including an EMF reader, infrared camera and spirit box.
Do I need to watch The Conjuring movies first?
No. Unspoken tells its own story, although people familiar with the films may recognise additional connections.
Is The Conjuring: Unspoken coming to PlayStation, Xbox or Steam?
Not at launch. It is currently announced as a Netflix-exclusive game, so you'll need a compatible Netflix gaming setup.
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