Order Up: Donut Panic Serves Up Pure Anomaly Horror on Steam

If you thought managing a chaotic kitchen was stressful enough on its own, indie developer Kyle Banks is about to take that anxiety to an entirely new level. Revealed during the Future Games Show Live from GDC this week, Donut Panic is a brand new title heading to Steam later in 2026, and it brilliantly mashes together the frantic energy of a cooking simulator with the absolute terror of an anomaly horror game.

Let us break down exactly what makes this graveyard shift so incredibly dangerous.

The Late Night Nightmare

You are taking the overnight shift at a completely rundown Scottish diner. Your primary objective is to master your pastry skills by frying, decorating, and serving delicious donuts and coffee to your late night patrons. But this is definitely not a cozy management experience.

Here is why your kitchen is about to become a supernatural death trap:

• Spot The Anomalies: You have to keep a hyper focused eye on your environment and your customers. At any moment, possessed patrons can trigger terrifying hallucinations and supernatural events.
• The Safe Space: You are not entirely defenseless! When the hauntings get way too intense, you have to completely abandon the deep fryer and sprint to your customizable panic room. Correctly identifying the anomalies and timing your retreat is the absolute only way to make it through the night.
• The Time Loop: If you fail to spot the horrors and get caught by the entities, you will be permanently trapped in a looping nightmare.
• Story Driven Secrets: Exploring the diner between the cooking chaos allows you to uncover the dark secrets behind the hauntings, and your discoveries will directly influence which of the multiple endings you experience.

Seeing Kyle Banks pivot from creating the incredibly wholesome adventure game Farewell North to developing a terrifying haunted diner simulator is a wild switch up! The anomaly horror genre has been absolutely exploding lately, but blending that spot the difference observation mechanic with the intense time management of a cooking game is pure genius. Trying to perfectly glaze a pastry while actively checking if the customer at the counter has too many eyes sounds like the ultimate test of multitasking under pressure. 😱

For BREAK THE META, this is WILD SURF. Catch you on the next drop!