Sons of the Forest

Instead of a full release, Endnight Games’ survival horror sandbox sequel is launching into Steam Early Access on February 23rd to add more features over time and get feedback from the community. There’s already tons to look forward to with this launch, whether it’s the map that’s four times larger than the first game, AI companions, revamped building mechanics, or all the little secrets. Even if it needs some more time to be fully “complete,” Sons of the Forest should be an incredible experience when it arrives later this month for PC.

Lost Soul Aside

Taking inspiration from the likes of action games, developer UtilZeroGames’ upcoming Lost Soul Aside is looking like a promising hack and slash game. Players take control of a warrior and a shapeshifting companion as they make their way through a world where technology and fantasy coalesce together in a beautiful way. The combat is fast and frenetic, and the visuals are absolutely stunning – which is why you should definitely keep an eye out for Lost Soul Aside when it releases in the near future.

Project: The Perceiver

One of the more recent announcements in the list, Project: The Perceiver can best be described as Ghost of Tsushima meets Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Set against the backdrop of ancient China, the game follows an artist who dies moments before completing his masterpiece – but is brought back to life by a mysterious force following which he embarks on a quest to save his land from intruders. The combat is stylish yet retains a methodical flair to it, and the open world looks gorgeous with stunning vistas and a grand sense of scale.

Project GRAY

Currently in development at In-D, Project Gray puts you in the shoes of a native who has gained some special abilities thanks to an advanced civilization that has landed on its shores. Now, it’s up to him to stand up to the aliens and drive them away from this planet. Project GRAY started life as a one-man project and it’s still some ways from release, but it looks gorgeous with some dynamic gameplay that revolves between traversal and combat flawlessly.

Mumbai Gullies

Mumbai Gullies is a story about the protagonist rising through the ranks of Mumbai’s underworld throughout different time periods. The game is open-world, so it seems fair to expect a number of surprises while exploring every nook and cranny of this faithfully recreated rendition of the Indian city of dreams. Mumbai Gullies has the potential to morph into a grand hit, and we really hope that it does exactly that.

Airtight City 2.0

Airtight City 2.0 sees players assuming the role of a soldier who is powered by millions of souls, and if you think that premise is interesting – wait until you see the game in action. The combat looks absolutely brutal with our armored protagonist seamlessly switching between weapons and abilities to get through hordes of enemies. Airtight City 2.0 doesn’t have a release date at this point, but stay tuned to learn more.

IGI Origins

Toadman Interactive is bringing back a beloved franchise with IGI Origins, which looks like everything we would want from a modern entry in the series. IGI Origins presents itself with a fresh coat of paint thanks to updated visuals, and the hybrid gameplay loop of action and stealth is sure to captivate gamers once again when it releases for all major platforms sometime in the future.

Moon Mystery

Moon Mystery – at its core – is a game about uncovering the many secrets that lie undiscovered on its surface. Cosmonauts ask some pretty intriguing questions about our race to the moon, such as what was the real reason behind the mad race to reach the moon. It’s pretty rooted in alternate history and sci-fi fiction, and the gameplay seems to put equal amounts of attention to combat and exploration – which has us salivating for the final release.

Bramble: The Mountain King

Bramble: The Mountain King might seem like an ordinary adventure game at first glance, but upon further inspection – you will soon realize that it’s so much more than just that. The story (which is inspired by dark Nordic fables) sees you embarking on a grand adventure to rescue your sister from dark threats that haunt these lands. The journey will be punctuated by interesting set-pieces, gargantuan threats, and emotional story beats that should make Bramble: The Mountain King a game worth looking into.

Little Devil Inside

Neostream Interactive’s Little Devil Inside has been a long time coming, and suffice to say – it looks really promising. The trailers showcase our explorer characters going through a mundane personal life as well as an adventurous professional life as they search for monsters. The game will be open-world, and the minimalist cartoony art style really draws you in.

Aftermath

Aftermath puts you in the shoes of Charlie as he trudges through a city in vain hopes of finding his daughter, all while dealing with perils of an inhuman invasion. Apart from that, Aftermath will also put a lot of focus on Charlie’s own mental health issues such as PTSD which will have huge ramifications on gameplay as well. Aftermath looks really intriguing, and while it doesn’t have a release date just yet – we are really looking forward to playing it.

Vigilancer 2099

Vigilancer 2099 is all about your player character taking up on bounties to pay off some huge debt. Envoidant Studios’ upcoming action adventure is steeped in references to famous works of cyberpunk art, but it also has enough flavour of its own to help distinguish it from the rest of the pack. The visuals look gorgeous, and while gameplay details remain scant for now – Vigilancer 2099 certainly has our attention.

ILL NESS

Not to be confused with Project ILL from Clout Games, ILL NESS is another upcoming different survival horror experience from publisher ASDStudio. ILL NESS is inspired by a classic horror fiction novel Dreamcatcher, and it paints a bleak and dim world where survival seems unlikely – but you must trudge through all odds to remain alive. It looks absolutely brutal, and it’s currently set for a 2022 release date – though that would be updated soon.

Where Winds Meet

Much like Project: The Perceiver that we discussed before, Where Winds Meet is an open-world action RPG that’s set against the backdrop of ancient China. And it also tells a story that’s deeply personal to the protagonist, as he faces a moral dilemma between upholding his code of conduct or use everything in his power to defeat his enemies. The combat and traversal are looking pretty fast paced, and they all culminate to form a dynamic gameplay proceeding that looks really enchanting.

Pioner

In so many ways, Pioner looks like a true next-gen survival game. GFA Games’ paints a bleak world on the brink of destruction, and that gives way to interesting gameplay elements like well-designed first person combat, PvP elements, and base building among others. Pioner will be coming to PC sometime in the near future, and more details will be revealed soon.

Paranormal Tales

Digital Cybercherries’ upcoming Paranormal Tales is a collection of stories about people who went missing in a dark forest, and players must play through footage of those recordings to find out the mystery behind those disappearances. Paranormal Tales utilizes a rather unique bodycam perspective, and the developers are teasing some disturbing horror elements that are likely to get under your nerves. And that has us excited to know more about it, and hopefully we will get to play it soon.

Trion Worlds has been on fire lately with updates. First its free to play fantasy MMO Rift received the Nightmare Tide expansion and now online shooter Defiance has received the Aftermath update following the conclusion of season 2 for the TV series. Check out the trailer above.

The Aftermath will add a bunch of new story missions along with some new enemy types and other goodies to justify your time. Defiance went free to play earlier this year for all platforms so now’s as good a time as ever to get in on the third person shooting.

Defiance is set in the future on Earth and focuses on Ark Hunters who scavenge treasure and technology from alien ships. You’ll have to deal with the Votanis Collective, a race of aliens also inhabiting Earth in a shaky truce. What are your thoughts on the new Aftermath update? Let us know in the comments below.

Jordan Garland: Well done on an absolutely stellar job with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you’ve done everybody proud and I think I speak for everyone when I say I simply cannot stop thinking about the next time I’m going to be playing. I appreciate you’ve been putting your hearts and souls into an excellent final product and you all deserve a massive  hug and a rest.

Jake Solomon: Thanks very much! We’re all really excited it’s out finally. I still kind of can’t believe it myself, despite having the box on my desk and everything.

Jordan Garland: First off, which key details of the original UFO/XCOM games led to Firaxis creating its first non-Sid Meier game?

Jake Solomon: I have always been a huge fan of the original game. X-Com was the reason I majored in computer science, and I have been bugging everyone since I joined Firaxis 12 years ago for a chance to remake it.. In some ways, it’s good nobody listened to me, because I think we ended up with a perfect combination of talented people, solid technology, and support from 2K when we got the greenlight to make the game.

As far as details go, I think most XCOM fans would agree that there are a few key features which have to be in the game: Turn-based combat, a strategy layer over top of the combat game, and seriously punishing consequences. In a lot of ways, the story of XCOM is the one that comes out of your play, and we wanted to make sure that our XCOM still had those classic moments, like a rookie taking a Hail Mary shot and killing the alien that was going to destroy you next turn.

Jordan Garland: The Thin Man looks like a lizard wearing a Yoko Ono costume, where did the inspiration for him come from?   

Jake Solomon: I can honestly say nobody has ever made that Thin Man comparison. Usually people say he looks like their cousin or this guy they know. He’s inspired by the Men In Black of UFO mythology. He also had a really important gameplay role to fill as a poisonous alien that might appear weak, but had to be respected by even veteran soldiers.

Jordan Garland: I was 2 when the original UFO: Enemy Unknown came out. How does it feel to be bringing such a marvellous franchise, recreated so impeccably, to an entirely new generation?   

Jake Solomon: Like I said, it’s sort of unreal. We’ve made this game because we love the original so much and we want people to have those classic XCOM moments that you remember years later. We really wanted to get those emotional high points of the original in there. There aren’t too many games like XCOM out there, and we wanted to bring that experience to more people. People who were fans of the original game have been great at spreading the word to their friends who maybe didn’t ever play the original: “You must play this game, and you must name all your soldiers after your friends and they’ll die and it will be awesome.”

Jordan Garland: What’s your opinion on chest-high walls?   

Jake Solomon: They’re excellent for keeping small dogs in the yard. No, seriously, the cover system was a way to let us emphasize positioning as part of the combat system. My personal opinion is that half-cover is good, and full cover is much better, and cars are only good cover if there’s nothing else around.

Jordan Garland: Did you originally design it to be as cover-heavy as the finished article?

Jake Solomon: We started with a prototype that was very similar to the original X-Com, where there wasn’t cover per se. We wanted a system where soldiers interacted more, and so we added abilities that linked together in interesting ways and started to work more as a squad. That actually made the game less interesting tactically when you had a huge number of guys because you could pretty much sweep the opposition on your turn. So we kept iterating on squad size and combat dynamics, and I think there was a pretty big shift at some point and the current version of the combat system was added, and suddenly the game felt a lot more tactical, and a lot more about making decisions with real consequences.

Jordan Garland: What exactly led the team to the two-step move/shoot mechanic, rather than giving some units more/less based on their attributes?

Jake Solomon: A lot of the decision was tied up with the other aspects of the combat system: classes, abilities, inventory, and so forth. But another part of it was that the time unit system really got in the way of people treating their squads as a team. It was more like trying to optimize a whole series of algebraic formulas all at the same time. The really interesting decision is: “How am I going to handle two Mutons over there and a Thin Man who ran away a second ago but might come back later?” The move-action system is a more direct way of implementing your plan: Heavy fires a rocket, the Assault run-and-guns up the flank to shoot the survivors, and the Support goes into overwatch.

Jordan Garland: Were there any game play features that were originally part of the game but you guys had to leave them due to any technical, financial or time-constraints? 

Not really. I had a lot of stupid ideas that deserved to be cut because they were bad design, and the team called me on them. We got everything we wanted into the game.

Jordan Garland: What made you decide to bring the game to consoles, historically strategy games have often fared poorly in that area so was this move seen as somewhat of a gamble?   

Jake Solomon: We didn’t think so because we knew the original game was awesome, and if we could get people fired up about the game, it almost didn’t matter what hardware you were developing for. And full credit goes to 2K for fully backing us up during development, which was a very creatively brave decision.

Jordan Garland: What are your thoughts on current generation of consoles? Do they offer a stream lined development process like the PC does?   

Jake Solomon: There are some production advantages to working on consoles because obviously their hardware is consistent, and any PC developer can tell you how much fun compatibility testing can be. But I love them all – it’s been a great console generation cycle.

Jordan Garland: XCOM weaves a more in-depth and compelling narrative with ‘voiceless’ marines than most manage with bonafide characters, why do you think this is? Do you feel this says something about the state of storytelling in war-games?   

Jake Solomon: I think XCOM is special because so much of the story is what happens in the game, and your imagination creates the scene around it. We can do little things like give Sergeants their nicknames, and give you the ability to change the appearance and names of your soldiers, but the narrative is created by the gameplay. That’s part of the beauty of these kinds of games, where so much of it is open ended that you almost can’t help telling yourself more of the story as you go along. Sharing those stories is a common thread that binds veterans of XCOM.

Jordan Garland: Thanks for your time Jake, we all really appreciate it and plan to be playing XCOM for months to come.

Jake Solomon: My pleasure! It was great talking to you.

Well if that hasn’t whet your appetite for the destruction of alien scum then literally nothing will, ever. XCOM: Enemy Unknown scored 9.5/10 and I’m seriously considering asking it to move in with me.

Enormous plot spoilers below. 

For the first edition, I’ve been in discussion with the Lead Writer of the truly fantastic Spec Ops: The Line, Walt Williams. Last month I gave Spec Ops: The Line 9/10, the best score of any game I’ve played this year, so here’s our chance to dig deeper and walk The Line with one of it’s main creators.

You have been warned: huge, bone-crushing spoilers below.

Jordan Garland: To anybody who has completed Spec Ops: The Line, the stand-out scene in the game has to be White Phosphorus. That scene was both compelling and mortifying in equal measure, what challenges did you face when depicting something so horrific?

Walt Williams: There are 3 challenges when trying to create a scene like “White Phosphorus.” The first, and to me this was the biggest challenge we faced throughout the game, was making it feel organic. It would have been very easy for a game like Spec Ops to fall back on exploitation and shock value. But we made a choice early on that every horrific moment in the game had to be earned. If it wasn’t the obvious result of cause and effect, and if it wasn’t absolutely key to the narrative, then we threw it out.

The second challenge was getting the Player to take part in such a terrible act. This is where the brilliant designers at Yager had the idea of mimicking the “Death From Above” mission in Modern Warfare. The idea was that we, as gamers, have been trained to disconnect from a game when the gameplay experience drastically changes. We stop thinking about the enemies as Soldiers and instead see them as glowing dots that need to be turned off. Once the Player disconnects from the reality of the situation, something truly horrible happens. And it hits Players in the gut, because now they have to face the consequences of their actions. They don’t get teleported to the next location. They have to face the human cost of their actions.

Finally, the third challenge is animation. Writing a scene for an actor is very different than writing it for an animation team. Walker’s reaction to what he has done is told almost entirely through his facial expressions. Again, that we were able to pull this scene off is due entirely to the amazing animators at Yager.

JG: In creating something so compelling and, to some extent, distressing, did you ever find yourself in a position where the creative process had desensitized you to the horror it depicted?

WW: In many ways, I wish it had desensitized me, but unfortunately, it did not. To be honest, Spec Ops was emotionally a very hard game to write. You don’t simply come up with horrible scenes, you also have to live them through the eyes of your characters. You have to get inside their heads, see these horrors through their eyes. Then, you have to destroy them on every level.

This would be hard enough to experience just once. But, writing a project like this takes time. About 3 years, to be exact. That is a very long time to be immersed in a game like Spec Ops. There were definitely times when I wanted to walk away from the project, because it was taking a serious toll on my life. But in the end, I couldn’t walk away from a story and project that was so personal to me and the team at Yager.

JG: Is it a nod towards real-life atrocities, such as the infamous Wikileaks ‘Collateral Murder’ video?

WW: No. We made a decision early on to not connect Spec Ops with any real world conflicts or situations. The connection “White Phosphorus” has to reality is simply that these things do happen. Our actions do not always play out as intended. We cannot always control the consequences of our decisions. Horrible things happen to people every day. They have to make the decision to keep going. Whether that involves lying to themselves or to others, that’s entirely up to them.

JG: It’s quite refreshing to see a genuine comment on another title beyond pure mindless tribalism. Is Spec Ops: The Line not only a critique of war itself, but its portrayal in video games in general?

WW: The reference is real world video. But the strength of the scene comes the established DfA sequence in Modern Warfare. When two games draw from the same real-world source, you cannot avoid comparisons. That Spec Ops forces the Player to face the aftermath of this reality could be seen as a critique of war in games. But really, we just wanted to be true to the situation. We didn’t want the Player to be able to hide from the consequences of his actions.

JG: Did you ever consider making the mortar scene optional, like other instances further down the line?

WW: It is optional, to an extent. The Player can open fire on the Soldiers using their normal weapons, but they are severely outnumbered. The Player will eventually run out of ammo and be overcome. Is that necessarily fair? No. But it’s not until you’ve used the mortar and seen the consequences of your actions that you start to wonder, “Could I have done something different?” And the answer is no. It was your only real option. To which you might say, “That’s not fair.” And I’d say, “You’re right.”

That’s a real emotional response and I can guarantee it’s exactly what Walker is feeling in that moment.

The choice isn’t “Do I use the mortar or not?” The real choice is “Can I keep going, knowing what I’ve done?”

JG: After that scene, you’re thrown straight back into the action and I for one was totally bewildered, was this yo-yoing of emotion something you wanted to explore?

WW: It is. We didn’t want the world to cater to the Player’s desires. In that moment, you wanted to digest what just happened. But there are other people in the world and they want to kill you for the same reason. In many ways, this is what “The Line” is all about. Some people think it means “The Line you don’t want to cross or have to cross.” But really, it’s The Line between expectations and reality. As gamers, we expect a game to embrace us… to yield to us and our actions. Spec Ops, however, opposes you. It subverts your expectations and reminds you that you are not in control. And that was entirely by design.

JG: Is Spec Ops: The Line a comment on the shooting genre, rampant glorification of war depicted with very little consequence, was this something you consciously wanted to address?

WW: “War is hell” isn’t just a saying. It’s true. You’d probably find it difficult to find someone who disagrees with the statement. And yet, we have allowed war to exist strictly as entertainment within video games. No other medium treats war strictly as a spectacle. With Spec Ops, we weren’t trying to make people feel bad about playing shooters, although that certainly is one reaction people are having. Our goal was simply to make people think—about the games the play and the reasons they play them.

JG: Was the player’s experience always intended to mirror Walker’s? You enjoy the killing and destruction as much as he does, so did you desire for the player to also feel guilty?

WW: Absolutely. On the surface, Spec Ops can be classified as a military game—you are a soldier in conflict against soldiers. But really, Spec Ops is a story about who we are as gamers… about the entertainment we choose to consume and our reasons for doing so. Walker comes to Dubai, wanting to feel heroic and powerful. He wants to overcome obstacles and save the day. Just like us, every time we sit down to play a game.

JG: Spec Ops: The Line’s various flash-points provide gamers with split-second decision points, where the most obvious route ‘out’ is arguably the most objectionable. How did you want players to react in these desperate situations?

WW: Believe it or not, we had no specific desire for players to make one choice over another. We tried very hard to remove any judgment from those scenes. Our hope was that players would follow their own hearts… whether their heart was feeling vengeful or merciful, that was entirely up to the Player.

JG: Nolan North, the voice actor for Captain Walker, also voiced the indomitable Nathan Drake, known for his almost blasé approach to the merciless slaughter of hundreds. Were you involved in the casting process and was casting him a conscious decision?

WW: I was involved with casting and I’d love to say we were brilliant to cast Nolan as a means of subverting Player expectation. But, the truth is, we hired Nolan simply because he is a fantastic actor with tremendous range. He’s also a great guy and a pleasure to work with. In fact, Nolan worked on Spec Ops for at least 4 years. He was the very first actor we cast. He even did the scratch VO for an internal vertical slice demo. Needless to say, he spent a long time with Captain Walker and really took the opportunity to explore his darker side.

JG: You’ve managed to make a great game with great endings, the holy grail of everything video-games. Just how many endings are there in total?

WW: There are 4 official endings and 1 unofficial ending. 1 in Konrad’s penthouse. 3 in the epilogue. And 1 in real life, for those players who decide they can’t go on and put down the controller.

And that’s all for the very first Aftermath, and I hope it was as insightful for you as it was for me. Spec Ops: The Line is a prime example of substance over gameplay, but give me a choice and I’ll choose narrative every single time.