Hit New Survival Horror Franchise Officially Getting Movie & TV Adaptations

Published Jul 29, 2026, 5:03 PM EDT Adam has been writing in the entertainment news space for over a decade. Beginning his career of covering film and TV at CinemaBlend, he has also appeared on The Flash Podcast and done several radio spots. Five years after launching, a popular survival horror franchise is officially making the jump to the movie and TV spaces. In 2021, the popular horror video game Tormented Souls was released, developed by Dual Effect, and published by PQube for consoles like Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S after starting out on Steam. Following a young woman in 1994 trying to stay alive in an abandoned mental hospital, the game was met with positive critical reception, and Tormented Souls 2 followed in 2025. Now there’s official word that the Tormented Souls property will be adapted for film and television. As shared by Deadline, ZQ Entertainment, Prime Universe Films, and Longevity Pictures have obtained the movie and TV rights for Tormented Souls. ZQ will finance the development of this project and co-finance its production, and Ara Keshishian and Petr Jakl from that company will produce it alongside Prime Universe Films president Adrian Askarieh and Longevity’s Majd Nassif. Gabriel Araneda Quijada and Germán Araneda Quijada from Dual Effect, as well as Josh Wexler from Pure Imagination Studios, are attached as executive producers. Keshishian and Jakl said in an official statement that the goal with this Tormented Souls project is to “honor everything fans love while delivering a terrifying cinematic experience worthy of the franchise.” Askarieh said in his own statement: Tormented Souls is exactly the kind of intellectual property we love pursuing. The game has grown from its indie roots to now boasting a passionate worldwide audience. We believe this is the beginning of a major horror franchise. Envisioned as a Resident Evil-style third-person shooter game, the first Tormented Souls follows a Canadian woman named Caroline Walker who travels to the aforementioned abandoned hospital to learn the fate of twin girls from a picture sent to her. Upon arriving, she’s knocked unconscious, has her right eye surgically removed, and must fight back against the humanoid monsters and supernatural forces populating the complex as she solves the mystery of these girls and uncovers the hospital's dark secrets. Askarieh previously produced 2007’s Hitman and 2015’s Hitman: Agent 47, so he and Prime Universe know their way around video game adaptations. It’s unclear if this Tormented Souls project will be a movie as well, a TV series instead, or if these companies will pursue both avenues at the same time. Prime Universe was also developing a film adaptation of the video game series Just Cause in the late 2010s, but it never materialized, and now Blue Beetle's Ángel Manuel Soto is attached to direct a new take on Just Cause. Notable horror video game adaptations from recent years include movies like Five Nights at Freddy’s, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, Until Dawn, and Return to Silent Hill, and TV shows like Netflix’s Resident Evil and HBO’s The Last of Us. Assuming this Tormented Souls project moves forward, it would join a slate of upcoming video movies and TV shows that includes Helldivers, Sonic the Hedgehog 4, Elden Ring, and Call of Duty on the film front, and Baldur’s Gate, Mass Effect, Wolfenstein, and Persona in the TV realm. Systems Released August 27, 2021 ESRB M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mild Language, Partial Nudity Developer(s) Dual Effect Games Publisher(s) PQube Engine Unity