Developed by Bleakmill and published by Headup, this one’s an interesting survival horror shooter that puts you in the shoes of Nora, the returning protagonist from the first title, who is grappling with its events while trying to make her way back home to 1989 Berlin. Her efforts are thwarted by ATLAS, a rogue AI that is seemingly connected to the sinister machines and automatons standing between Nora and her goals.

We were quite impressed by the first title’s storytelling and world-building, although we did lament its clunky controls and technical issues in our review. However, the sequel could finally perfect the formula and deliver a better experience as a result. The gameplay loop looks quite ambitious this time around, and it’s a thankfully short while before we can dive in and find out. Although the new trailer doesn’t reveal too much about the game, it’s still worth watching for you to get some context about what’s going on before you dive in.

The trailer indicates that Industria 2 will be doubling down on its predecessor’s horror shooter vibes. A brief look at the gameplay from the start of the trailer shows us the protagonist loading up their shotgun with some shells as they explore a dilapidated building.

In this building, the player has to sneak around some sort of monstrosities. When there are too many of them, the player has to resort to shooting some of them while also trying to escape.

On escaping, the trailer switches to showcase more of the story in Industria 2. The shooter will revolve around protagonist Nora having to figure out a way to get home alongside Marlene. The central question driving the story of Industria 2 will be about the sinister AI ATLAS.

Industria 2 is set two years after the events of the first game. Players take on the role of Nora, who is trapped in a parallel dimension between machine-built walls. While Nora has an abandoned chapel near the coast as her main base of operations, she is trying to figure out a way to get back to her home in 1989 East-Berlin.

Along the way, Nora will have to deal with several obstacles, the least of which will be ATLAS. The game will revolve around Nora coming to terms with her past and having to face the consequences of her previous actions, which are seemingly linked to the creation of ATLAS in some way.

The gameplay in Industria 2 will focus on presenting players with immersive gameplay through the use of physics-based interactions. There will also be a crafting system, as well as an inventory system described by the developers as diegetic. Paired with this will be a unique setting that features industrial decay and a boreal landscape, complete with otherworldly structures and creatures.

As part of the game’s crafting system, players will also be able to upgrade their arsenal of five weapons. These upgrades come in the form of various attachments, like extended magazines, silencers, or even more unique attachments that provide special attacks.

The studio has noted that, while Industria 2 will feature a core narrative that players can follow, it will be light on cutscenes. The title, inspired by the storytelling techniques of seminal shooter Half-Life 2, will feature in-game cutscenes that present the story will still giving players plenty of freedom.

Industria 2 is being developed for PC and is slated for release in 2025. As its name might imply, the title is a follow-up to 2022’s Industria.

We reviewed the original Industria on the Xbox Series X/S, giving it a score of 6 out of 10. While we praised the title’s storytelling and world building, as well as its visuals and atmosphere, the cumbersome movement, dull combat, as well as an array of technical issues were problems.

The Xbox Series X and PS5 are pretty evenly matched when you look at their net hardware, but both of them have advantages over each other in specific areas. Microsoft’s console, for instance, comes out on top in terms of pure, raw power, with a GPU of 12 teraflops, as compared to the PS5’s 10.28 teraflops GPU.

How will that, however, affect games in the coming years, especially those that release across both consoles? Can we expect multiplatform titles to look noticeably better on the Xbox Series X than they do on the PS5? According to Mark Aldrup, chief technology officer at Headup Games – who recently published the ClockStone-developed Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead – that won’t be the case.

Speaking to GamingBolt in a recent interview about the same, Aldrup said that the gap in the two consoles will only make a difference to the AAA development studios- and even in that case, players shouldn’t expect games to look significantly better on Xbox than on PlayStation.

“For us and most other indie developers this is not going to make any big difference,” Aldrup said. “For AAA development studios this might result in a slightly higher performance, but this is also very dependent on other factors than only the theoretical TFLOPS. I don’t think that we’re going to see games on Xbox Series X that look significantly better than their PS5 counterparts.”

Our full interview with the people behind Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead will be going live soon, so stay tuned for that. The game is available now on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, iOS, and Android.

"White Shadows shows a world based on contrast. Rich and poor, powerful and powerless, light and darkness, despair and hope."

White Shadows has a striking visual aesthetic that immediately leaps out of the screen. How did you land on this look for the game?

It’s all based on a pretty simple concept. White Shadows shows a world based on contrast. Rich and poor, powerful and powerless, light and darkness, despair and hope… And it deals with some pretty serious topics – systemic racism, propaganda, a world that uses its citizens as resources instead of giving them civil liberties, a world that is kind of entertaining itself to death. It’s pretty heavy stuff at times, and you know, showing these things can be amazing, but it can also be horribly boring and preachy.

We felt the best way to show all that was by having a stylized way that would allow us to show everything we needed for the story, but never completely fantasy, so there’s still a connection to the real world. And we also wanted to make fun of things. It’s a world where the powerful control the powerless. The world is huge, and you play someone who is really small. So we have these monumental settings, but as we all know, the powerful can be really stupid. So everything is in disrepair, bent and broken and held together in strange ways. We wanted both the horror and the absurd fun of what people do in our world to pop out as much as possible. The game world is off and it’s weird, but also strangely familiar. And the game looks like that, too.

White Shadows’ setting and narrative premise seem rife for some very relevant commentary- is that much of a focus in the game?

Yes, it is. We want to speak about what’s going on in the world around us today. We feel like we’re part of this world and, like most people, we want to help make the world around us a little better, not worse. What you see in the game is our reflection of what we see in the real world we all share. The racism, the propaganda, a world that is growing apart and where people don’t really speak with each other anymore. It’s our little contribution to keep some important conversations going. And it’s also our effort to give you some awesome entertainment at the same time.

Is the light and shadows visual style equally important to the way the game tells its story and the way players interact with it through gameplay mechanics?

Yeah, absolutely. For us, the visuals and the mechanics are not separate parts. They are part of the same thing. Black & white graphics are a visual choice, but they also speak to a world that is divided into parts by powerful people. And power – or powerlessness – is very much part of the gameplay experience. Having strong contrasts of light and shadows is a visual style, but it’s also a mechanic – light can be your enemy in this world, with people looking for you, but it’s also necessary to see things, obviously. It helps create a tension where you’re never quite sure what to expect.

"For us, the visuals and the mechanics are not separate parts. They are part of the same thing. Black & white graphics are a visual choice, but they also speak to a world that is divided into parts by powerful people."

What was behind the idea of occupying the game’s dystopian world with animals and anthropomorphic denizens?

Well, we’re all animals in some way, aren’t we? In its essence, White Shadows is a modern fable. We aim to tell a universal story through the things we all understand intuitively. Wolves are bad, rats are mean, pigs are dirty, sheep just bleat along and repeat what the other sheep are saying. But then, is that really true? Are things really that simple? We want to show a world of stereotypes – and then let the player decide if this allocation are true or not.

White Shadows promises a story that is dark yet funny- which is an exciting prospect, but a hard balance to strike. Can you talk to us about that, and how White Shadows goes about achieving that?

It’s always a question of how the game flows. In the end, our players will hopefully laugh and cry and cringe at what they see on the screen and what they feel playing the game. It always goes back to the world of our game – it’s a pretty dark setting which is loaded with connections to the real world we have around us. But it can also be really boring and depressing when dark stories are just dark and nothing else. For darkness to be truly dark, you need light as a contrast. For something to be funny, you need something serious next to it. It’s those contrasts that give ideas their full expression. When I play a game, I don’t want to just feel one thing – I want to feel everything. And so “dark yet funny” is not actually a paradox for us. It’s necessary to tell the story in the way it should be told.

Can players expect to learn much about the history and backstory of the game’s world through the course of its story?

Yes, they can. There are scenes specifically built around understanding the backstory of the game world and the origin story of our little heroine. The main thing is for us is to tell our story through gameplay – so when there’s something to understand in the world, we make sure that we give it to you in a playable way and not in a cutscene. We want to keep up the flow of the game at all time and tell you a great story – but in a way that enables you to decide for yourself what that story means.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of White Shadows be?

I’d say 3 to 4 hours, more or less the same length as games like Little Nightmares or Inside. But of course, play time is always hard to estimate. We are doing our best to make the game accessible to people who don’t usually play a lot of games – while keeping it challenging for everybody else.

Do you have any plans to launch on the Switch?

Yes, we have plans for that, but not right away. For the launch, we will focus on PC and next-gen consoles and then we’ll see if you guys like it.

"When I play a game, I don’t want to just feel one thing – I want to feel everything. And so “dark yet funny” is not actually a paradox for us. It’s necessary to tell the story in the way it should be told."

While most multiplatform games are choosing to launch as cross-gen titles in the early stages of the coming generation, White Shadows is exclusively on PC and next-gen consoles. Can you talk to us about how you arrived at that decision?

Well, you can’t always get what you want. Part of the reality of being a small team is that you must focus your efforts. Of course, we would like to make our games available for all players on all platforms at the same time. Every creator wants to get their stuff out there and we’re no different. We want to make it possible for everybody to enjoy our games on their preferred system. But we are a small team trying to build something extraordinary, and for that to have a chance, we must focus.

White Shadows depends to a large extent on big, detailed scenarios with minimal loading times, and that obviously needs enough hardware power to run fluently. Going PC and next-gen has its own challenges, but at least the hardware isn’t a big issue. And so, we don’t have to spend too much time on performance issues and can instead focus our efforts on where they should go: making the best possible experience for the players.

There is a theory that we live within an elaborate simulation, and that the world we know is not strictly real. Why this simulation would exist, who operates it, and what it means for life are often questions asked and generally the lack of ability to answer those questions are why the theory in question is usually rejected. I’ll be honest, I don’t know all about that, but there are times in life where you just have to wonder, and I think one of those moments was the announcement for Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead.

Revealed at Gamescom Opening Night Live, the game was shown with a live action trailer, which you can see below. It was…unexpected to say the least. The game apparently will task you with building bridges in tricky puzzles to help survivors thwart zombie attacks. You can see a very brief snippet of that gameplay in the trailer, though it’s hard to make out exactly how it’ll function.

While it seems like a classic gag game it is, in fact, very real. Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead will apparently launch sometime this year for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Switch, PC and both iOS and Android mobile devices.

"During my childhood, I played a LOT of Jak & Daxter and it greatly impacted me and what I wanted to do in the future. I’m still very nostalgic about this era and how impressive platformers were, how they managed to have multiple and innovative gameplay systems coupled with great stories."

Pumpkin Jack’s influences from MediEvil and Jak and Daxter are clear to see, but what would you say it is about those kinds of experiences that has driven you to make something similar?

Meyssonnier: During my childhood, I played a LOT of Jak & Daxter and it greatly impacted me and what I wanted to do in the future. I’m still very nostalgic about this era and how impressive platformers were, how they managed to have multiple and innovative gameplay systems coupled with great stories. I’m also a very big fan of everything around Halloween and spooky related things, and when I saw MediEvil managing to mix platformer and spooky at the same time, I just knew that I had to create my own game and create my own universe and style!

Can you tell us about any other games or media that have served as inspirations during development?

Meyssonnier: I was working in a video game studio, I worked on several games and was able to talk with a lot of people in the industry who all had something new to bring me to improve my game. Other than that, several 3D platformers such as A Hat in Time were released while I was developing the core of Pumpkin Jack, and seeing how they reinvented this classic style inspired me and most importantly, made me avoid mistakes that would have lessened the enjoyment.

What can players expect from the game in terms of the range and variety in weapons, and how much they will differentiate from each other?

Meyssonnier: While playing, you will unlock weapons which all have a very different playstyle, and which are to be used in different situations. They vary a lot in terms of design and gameplay, so you will never get bored of fighting and choosing the right weapon at the right time will definitely be a challenge!

How do Jack’s companions play into the combat and the puzzles as far as gameplay mechanics are concerned?

Meyssonnier: In Pumpkin Jack, you will travel the Boredom Kingdom with the Crow and the Owl, who both have unique personalities and usefulness. The Crow will be the one helping you all the time, whether it is for fighting or as Jack’s moral support. The Owl will play its part in guiding Jack along the way and presenting the puzzles, so the player never gets lost during the game and won’t search for the objective pointlessly.

"Each puzzle is designed to be unique and very different from one another. The goal is to have a challenging time in a puzzle designed around the atmosphere and level it is playable in."

What’s been your approach to Pumpkin Jack as far as designing puzzles is concerned? Is variety in puzzles something that Pumpkin Jack focuses on?

Meyssonnier: Definitely! Each puzzle is designed to be unique and very different from one another. The goal is to have a challenging time in a puzzle designed around the atmosphere and level it is playable in. Other than that, I take inspiration from other platformers and most of the time manage to recreate something new and really enjoyable. When I can’t find any idea, I just try harder and after several deletes, the perfect idea pops up in my head!

How much of an emphasis does the game put on exploration and traversal? Are the levels large enough to encourage players to wander about and look for optional stuff and secrets?

Meyssonnier: The levels are designed in a way the player doesn’t get lost, and therefore are pretty linear. However, the levels are not tunnels and while not being open-world or particularly big, you will still have to wander around them to find all the hidden collectibles. I also encourage players to take their time to go through the levels, as one of my wills is to create interesting sceneries to discover pretty much everywhere you can go.

Roughly how long is an average playthrough of Pumpkin Jack?

Meyssonnier: An average playthrough of Pumpkin Jack should last around six hours, and even more if you try to look for all the collectibles. The game is also speedrunner-friendly, and I can’t wait to see how fast the community can go!

With next-gen approaching, have you given any thought to bringing the game to the PS5 and Xbox Series X?

Meyssonnier: We actually hope to bring our game to next gen consoles, too. On PC it already features ray-tracing and it would be a blast to see that on the upcoming consoles, too. But first we focus on delivering the game in time on the initially planned platforms, PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.

Will the game feature Xbox One X and PS4 Pro-specific enhancements? Is 4K/60 FPS on the cards?

Aldrup: Seeing how the game runs well on a medium computer, I think it should run very well on Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. I think 4K/60 is definitely doable.

"Seeing how the game runs well on a medium computer, I think it should run very well on Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. I think 4K/60 is definitely doable."

There’s been a lot of talk of SSDs, which the PS5 and the Xbox Series X are both confirmed to feature. What’s the biggest impact it’s going to have on development, according to you?

Aldrup: Those incredibly fast SSDs will actually make development of bigger environments way easier. Until now developers had to develop quite complex structures of streaming in content and making sure to keep loading times as low as possible while also offering a high degree of details. With the new SSDs a huge amount of data can be streamed from “disc” with a very high speed which makes a lot of these techniques obsolete.

Speaking of next-gen hardware, something else that the PS5 and the Xbox Series X are both going to have is a Zen 2 CPU- how big of a leap is it over current-gen hardware in your view, and how is it going to help development?

Aldrup: It is quite a leap and will be especially useful for AAA titles. For most Indie developers the changes to GPU and HDD are probably going to be quite impactful though, but both PS5 and Xbox Series S CPUs are definitely power horses which will offer some very interesting opportunities especially for AAA developers.

The Xbox Series X also features GDDR6 memory- what’s the impact it will have on games in conjunction with the other advancements we’re going to see in next-gen consoles?

Aldrup: That super-fast RAM is a perfect addition to the new SSD and should make the console feel extremely responsive even at high workload.

Backward compatibility is something else both new consoles are banking on quite heavily. How much of an impact do you think it will have from the perspective of both, developers and consumers?

Aldrup: For consumers, backwards compatibility is always great. It offers new adopters a very big catalogue of beautiful titles available right at launch. It’s also very good for developers as older titles can be made available to that new target group without the need to develop a “Remaster” of the game targeting the new platforms.

"For consumers, backwards compatibility is always great. It offers new adopters a very big catalogue of beautiful titles available right at launch. It’s also very good for developers as older titles can be made available to that new target group without the need to develop a “Remaster” of the game targeting the new platforms."

What’s your take on the PS5’s haptic-enabled controller? Do you think it’s something that can significantly add to an experience, or is it just going to be a novelty?

Meyssonnier: This could become quite interesting in case we will bring Pumpkin Jack to PS5 one day. I didn’t have the chance to try this yet, but in theory those new haptic features might become very helpful to increase the game’s immersion, by providing a different feeling for each of Jack’s weapons and also while roaming through the game world.

The Xbox One X features 12 TFLOPs of GPU. How will this impact video game graphics?

Aldrup: Gaming is going to look very beautiful. AAA studios are going to create some incredibly detailed worlds and also Indies will be able to quite easily create some wonderful visuals with that powerful hardware.

"In general, I am trying to give the roguelike genre a bit more realism with Colt Canyon. This game won’t have any magic or crazy sci fi weaponry. I am not planning on adding things like magic wands, lasers guns, orbital beam strikes, or quadruple miniguns."

Colt Canyon sports a very distinctive pixel art style that immediately stands out- were there any particular games you looked at as inspirations?

Yes, I had one main inspiration. I remember seeing a gif of a pixel art game that used a minimalistic beige color palette on twitter once, before I even made the first prototype. When I had to decide for an art style for Colt Canyon, this image came back into my mind because I remember the style did an amazing job at giving the player a feeling of dry sand under his feet and the warm climate of a desert, or in my case could emphasize the wild west canyon setting. At that point I didn’t know what game the image was from, but later into the development of Colt Canyon I rediscovered it. The game in question is an adventure game called Sandstorm by developer Daniel Linssen.

When you have a look at it you immediately recognize the similar color palette. However, on a closer look you notice the two games convey different feelings and use vastly different visual effects and details. But I can’t deny that this image was a big part of my inspiration, especially for the first prototype version.

How many unlockable characters and weapons are there in Colt Canyon in total?

I don’t want to spoil everything, but there will be a wide cast of diverse unlockable and playable characters and companions. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able say anything precise because I will continue to add more weapons and characters to Colt Canyon until the day of release and beyond. The list of ideas is long. Even in the first Colt Canyon versions that we showed on events we already had 50 different weapons. Bows, shotguns, rifles, cannons, revolvers and various other guns. For release I am planning on at least doubling this number and even more if you include secret variations.

Can you talk to us about some of the best or craziest weapons we’ll be using in the game?

Actually, my favorite weapon changes time and again, but right now it’s the heavy bolt rifle. It’s just a great feeling to use this powerful rifle with its high penetration force and shoot right through obstacles and hit the enemies behind cover.

In general, I am trying to give the roguelike genre a bit more realism with Colt Canyon. This game won’t have any magic or crazy sci fi weaponry. I am not planning on adding things like magic wands, lasers guns, orbital beam strikes, or quadruple miniguns. However, this does not mean that the game won’t see anything that doesn’t fit into the wild west period. I know where to draw the line between fun, realism and believability. The further you advance in the game the crazier the weapons will become, and in the endgame, you will be able to play weapons you would usually never see in a wild west setting.

There will be “experimental” weapons that are arguably unrealistic but still remain not too crazy. Powerful but also much rarer and hopefully still fair and balanced. Some weapons are just too much fun to leave them out. I am talking about things like flamethrowers, fully automatic rifles, dynamite launchers, handheld gatling guns or explosive cannons. However, the biggest chunk of the weapons in Colt Canyon are weapons that could’ve actually been used in the 19^th century or shortly after.

"In general, companions will be able to help you as riflemen in large shootouts, not only by directing some of the fire onto them and acting as human shields, but also by actively firing back."

What sort of a balance does Colt Canyon strike between its stealth and out-and-out action? Mechanically speaking, what sort of stealth gameplay should players expect?

Colt Canyon will have an advanced enemy AI that will react to noise and the player’s actions. In the early levels of a run or in levels with a lot of high grass (which you can use to hide in), stealth can be very useful to advance through without having to spend a lot of ammo and to prevent large groups of enemies attacking you all at once. If you’ve got the firepower and accuracy or the right character, you could of course also choose to just fight and have shootouts with larger groups of enemies.

The player gets to choose from different characters to play as, each with its own stats. Some characters might be better for stealth action and some might be better for shootouts. Additionally, the right weapon will make or break your strategy. You can use bows or other quiet weapons to silently kill enemies from afar, but you will have to make sure to also take out nearby enemies as fast as possible or they will notice the people around them dying and go investigate or even alarm their allies. Some enemies are smarter than others and will notice you earlier, you should take them out first. A different stealth strategy might be to hide in grass and let the enemies come to you. Just give of a shot from your revolver and enemies will come to investigate the noise. This close you can easily take them out before they see you with a melee takedown.

When hitting enemies that didn’t spot you yet, you will be able to inflict extra damage, once they noticed you though it will be hard to deal any melee damage with most characters and you will have to start shooting without any extra damage.

All the different weapons, characters and enemy types offer a lot of possibilities for various strategies with different degrees of stealth action.

However, later in the game, stealth will become harder as enemies get more powerful or more intelligent, especially without upgrades or the wrong loadout. Sooner or later you will get into big shootouts.

What kinds of upgrades can players make to their characters and weapons?

There will be the basic upgrades like being able to carry more ammo, finding more items, having more health or using more powerful dynamite but also more advanced upgrades that might be useful to specific playstyles. For example, that you are harder to spot or specific weapons become more useful or powerful. Other upgrades are used to compensate disadvantages, for instance a specific character might have a slow reloading skill or poor melee damage; this can be made up with the right upgrade. On the other hand, you can also upgrade things the character is already talented at and suddenly you’re playing a reload- and movement-god or an almost undetectable assassin.

The most interesting upgrade might be the companion upgrade though.

What can you tell us about the AI companions and what they add to the game, not just in terms of the moment-to-moment action, but also given the fact that they seem to be upgradeable?

In general, companions will be able to help you as riflemen in large shootouts, not only by directing some of the fire onto them and acting as human shields, but also by actively firing back. Some companions might have more health than others but are less talented at shooting, you might want to give them close range weapons like shotguns. Some companions have less health but are more accurate, so why not give them rifles? But every companion can use all weapons that you can carry yourself and when companions are hurt you can heal them. The more enemies a companion kills the better he will become, sometimes he might even get an additional health point. Some upgrades are also specific for companions and give them shields, heal them up or just make them more talented in general.

You will also be able to command companions actively and tell them to attack at a specific position and this way create a distraction. Or you can tell them to hold their position and then lure the enemies to their position or keep them safe if they are hurt until you find the right items to heal them. This will come in handy especially once you’ve reached your partner, because if your partner dies the game is over just like when you die.

"There are no plans for actual competitive modes, but I am thinking about having daily runs or online leaderboards."

Are you planning on adding competitive modes to the game?

No, there are no plans for actual competitive modes, but I am thinking about having daily runs or online leaderboards. After all, Colt Canyon is designed as a fun single player (and co-op) experience where you slowly learn to master the game with all its details and underlying rules to, sooner or later, be able to rescue your kidnapped partner.

How large is a typical level in Colt Canyon, roughly speaking?

The large and open levels between the boss fights will be about 30 times the size of what can fit on the screen at once. Some might be smaller, some bigger. If the level was empty you wouldn’t need more than half a minute to run from the left side to the exit. However, the levels are filled with obstacles, traps, enemies and various explorable canyon ravines, so you will spend far more time in every level. During testing, people often spent close to an hour in a run before reaching the final boss. In fact, I’m thinking of scaling down some of the levels as sometimes people spend surprisingly much time wandering around or looting instead of advancing.

Randomization of levels is obviously something that is bound to keep things interesting for players, but are there any other ways that the game introduces dynamism to its environments?

A run will consist of three different areas with 3 levels and one boss level each. Every area will have their own unique enemy types, objects, color mood and music. The vegetation, obstacles and traps, prisoners and weapons might also vary between areas.

The biggest part of keeping runs interesting however is the randomization, wide variety of weapons, strategies, and new characters to use and unlock. The many destructible obstacles, loot containers and things like explosive barrels that you can incorporate into your strategies are part of the fun as well.

There will also be random encounters and secret levels in and between levels that will keep the game interesting and dynamic, but I don’t want to spoil too much.

Looking at Colt Canyon in action is quite fascinating, because of all the effects that the game makes use of, not just with its visual aesthetic, but also its animations. Can you talk about what all goes on behind the scene to achieve the look of game’s very distinct-looking action?

As I have mentioned earlier, I am in love with bringing my games to life by pushing effects and particles as far as possible. A large part of the movement on screen is not actually animated but uses a mix of particles and fine-tuned drawing of various static sprites in specific ways to create the illusion of detailed animations. Combining this with just the right amount of post-processing gives you a unique and moody style with a lot of details to discover even with such a minimalistic style.

Are there any graphical effects you’re especially proud of?

Yes, there are two visual effects that I enjoy the most. The first one being the persistent debris and blood particles. After a long shootout you will find debris and blood everywhere and unlike what you find in many other games this won’t just disappear. If you’re coming back later, you will find all the particles still on the floor making the level feel much more real and giving the player clear visual clues on where he has already been and what has happened. It also helps make the combat feel much more impactful and bullets much stronger, because every shot leaves clearly visible and permanent traces.

A second visual effect I am proud of is the dynamic grass. Not only the dense small grass but also the interactable high grass and cornfields. When the player moves through grass it will react accordingly. You can hide in high grass, explosions will burn the grass and create beautiful shockwaves that swoosh through it. This is one of the more hardware intensive visual effects, but I am sure even players with weak computers will be able to enjoy it just fine.

"The large and open levels between the boss fights will be about 30 times the size of what can fit on the screen at once. Some might be smaller, some bigger."

Given the game’s wild west setting, can we expect to see some interesting enemies and bosses centered around that theme?

Definitely, some people might even feel there’s a bit too much wild west in Colt Canyon, but I am not going to censor anything. There will be slaves, slave owners with whips, and other racist folks, natives, and native villages, and of course a whole bunch of bandits. You will never be forced to be a bad guy or do bad things, but of course you can decide for yourself whether to distinguish between outlaws and innocents or not and to what extent.

Speaking of bosses, can you speak more about how the game approaches the design of these encounters, and how many of these we can expect to see in the game?

At the end of every stage – so, every three levels – you will enter a boss level. These boss levels are small special areas where you must fight and defeat a very powerful boss enemy to advance. Unlike most other enemies you are forced to defeat every boss to be able to advance to the next stage. You should prepare for every boss fight in advance because once triggered you won’t be able to run away or look for some loot in other parts of the canyon. Some bosses will force you to start thinking differently about the fight and to try new strategies.

At launch you will fight a total of three different bosses, one per stage, excluding smaller boss-like encounters between the levels. Every single one of them will be a true challenge. So, don’t expect to defeat any one of these bosses on your first attempt without preparation.

Do you want to tell us anything about the music in the game?

I am probably not the right person to tell you any details about the music, because the music is one of the few things I didn’t make myself. Colt Canyon’s composer Luigi-Maria Rapisarda created over a dozen unique tracks for the game. Every stage and every boss fight will have their own music.

Because of Colt Canyon’s very dynamic stealth, looting, and combat system, with alternating phases of more relaxed looting and exploring in contrast to intense fast-paced action in an open environment, the idea was to have the music react to it accordingly. For that to work I had to implement dynamic music that changes smoothly between different tracks to keep the music fitting to what happens on screen. I hope this will keep the game’s music interesting, improve the intensity of action and atmosphere when exploring, and will give every player the feeling of actually being in the Colt Canyon.

There are a lot of question marks surrounding Google’s streaming-only platform, Stadia. Though they revealed plenty at their GDC reveal conference, there was quite a lot they didn’t talk about- so whether or not they can be successful with this very ambitious idea is something that depends on a lot we simply don’t know about- such as the infrastructure, for starters, which is a huge talking point, given its cloud-based nature.

But according to Tony Gowland of Ant Workshop, developer of the upcoming procedurally generated co-op twin-stick shooter Dead End Job, infrastructure won’t be as much of an issue as the actual content will be, which is an opinion share by Stadia’s direct competitors as well. While speaking with GamingBolt, Gowland said that the infrastructure is something that will constantly keep improving, and shouldn’t be much of an issue for Google- but the games they’ve shown off for it so far – such as DOOM Eternal – are the kind that most people, in his view, will want to get on their physical consoles. As per Gowland, then, Stadia might end up finding more success if it tries to appeal to the mass market instead, similar to what the Nintendo Wii did.

“Infrastructure will always keep improving,” said Gowland. “For me the tech thing is really down to how long Google stay interested in the space – if they’re around for the long haul then the internet stuff will catch them up. I wonder more about the market for what they’re offering, to be honest – so far they’re showing off very ‘gamer’ games like DOOM and Assassin’s Creed. I’m not sure if people who want to play those titles wouldn’t already have a console or PC, I think the audience there are enthusiasts who actively enjoy buying and owning their hardware. I think something much more mass market like the Nintendo Wii would be more of an obvious fit.”

In the same interview, Gowland also spoke to us about Sony’s stance on cross-play, and what he thinks the future holds for it. Read more on that through here. Ant Workshop’s Dead End Job is due out for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC some time this year. Our full interview will Gowland will be going live soon, so stay tuned.

Cross-play may have become a prevalent topic of late, but that doesn’t mean it was never a point of discussion before. While this generation has seen Sony having a stubbornly reluctant stance on enabling cross-platform play for games with the Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch, at the beginning of the previous generation, it was Microsoft with the Xbox 360 who held a similar stance.

As per Tony Gowland of Ant Workshop, developer of the upcoming procedurally generated co-op twin-stick shooter Dead End Job, that seems to be a bit of a pattern. Recently, while in conversation with GamingBolt, Gowland was asked about Sony’s stance on cross-play to which he pointed out that this isn’t an issue that has cropped up recently.

“I don’t really play much online multiplayer so it doesn’t really affect me at all,” said Gowland. “I think I vaguely remember Microsoft having a similar policy at the start of the Xbox 360, whereas Sony who was on the back foot a bit were allowing it. Just seems like whoever’s the market leader at the time will drag their feet on it.”

According to Gowland, however, the rise in popularity of huge multiplatform titles such as Fortnite might give cross-play the push it needs, and might see it becoming more of a permanent fixture when the next generation of consoles rolls around.

“I think it entirely comes down to games,” he said. “Fortnite surprised everyone recently with how huge it became, and it’s third party so everyone’s scrambling to try and make sure it’s attractive to play that game on their own console ecosystem.”

Ant Workshop’s Dead End Job is due out for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC some time this year. Our full interview will Gowland will be going live soon, so stay tuned.

"I remember, Secret of Mana especially did the job for back on the SNES. I spent hours just walking around in the colourful areas even when I had already done everything there was to do. When the first Zelda for N64 was released I was completely blown away by the level immersion a 3D environment could provide you with."

You’ve been vocal about how much games such as The Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana, and Golden Axe Warrior have inspired you during the development of Windscape. What was it about those games in particular that spoke to you as a developer?

They featured games in which you could lose yourself. I remember, Secret of Mana especially did the job for back on the SNES. I spent hours just walking around in the colourful areas even when I had already done everything there was to do. When the first Zelda for N64 was released I was completely blown away by the level immersion a 3D environment could provide you with. Back then, I wasn’t yet able to appreciate the extent to which they went. It was simply the carefully crafted world that sucked me right in.

You have been adamant that you do not want Windscape to be a stats-driven RPG or a terraforming sandbox title- can you elaborate on what you mean when you say that, and why that was such an important goal during development?

Even though I fully appreciate titles who follow along that path, my vision was to create something with which you could forget about everyday life. That’s why I tried to keep the part of stats as minimal as possible. There are values for equipment, but you don’t have to scrutinise it to get the maximum efficiency out of it.

How did you weight the advantages of a handcrafted world as opposed to a procedurally generated one?

I think both have their respective advantages. In general, it is easier to let players have special experiences in a hand-crafted world. As a developer you can place and upgrade progress, puzzles and little secrets all the way from the beginning to the end without having to rely on an element of randomness.

Can you speak to us about how dungeons are structured and how they function in Windscape?

Dungeons are the challenges in Windscape. On the Overworld, players are relatively safe and can prepare for upcoming dangers. The moment they enter a dungeon, fights can no longer be avoided, and they have to solve puzzles in order to advance. A dungeon combines combat, dexterity and puzzles while the Overworld invites you to explore and collect resources. Later on, both these elements will gradually merge together to show the player that the world as a whole is becoming more dangerous.

"I first saw the style from an artist, after which I had a go at it too. Since I had to create most objects myself, I looked for a style that would match and which was realisable for me. After a bit of fiddling around, it quickly turned out that it was possible to realise my vision with it."

How extensive are the crafting mechanics in Windscape?

The crafting component is rather used to serve the adventure than being a core part of the gameplay, as it can be in other games. Players quickly learn to craft diverse items and epuipment to better defend themselves in the world. It is up to them to decide whether they prefer to fight from range or in close combat. The crafting is meant to pull players into the world instead of offering tens of thousands of objects they could craft but, in the end, will never use.

How much of a focus is Windscape going to place on exploration? How large can we expect its maps to be?

Exploration is optional. Besides the main quest, there are many little side quests giving players the opportunity to receive better equipment or tell them funny stories.

Windscape sports a very striking visual aesthetic, that actually seems very reminiscent of something like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Given your love for the series, was that a conscious decision?

To be honest, I first saw the style from an artist, after which I had a go at it too. Since I had to create most objects myself, I looked for a style that would match and which was realisable for me. After a bit of fiddling around, it quickly turned out that it was possible to realise my vision with it. The connection to Wind Waker is more by chance, even though I did sometimes look in that direction during development.

How helpful has it been to release the game in Early Access initially? Has there been any particular area that you have been able to improve upon significantly due to the feedback you have received?

Early Access has been extremely helpful. Especially, the function to submit feedback with a screenshot helped me out greatly. I don’t think that there is a particular area that has profited the most. The feedback was mostly small suggestions which tended to keep coming in and improved the game in my opinion.

As an indie developer, what is your take on the Nintendo Switch, which seems to have become a haven for ambitious indie titles?

I love the Switch and can understand why other developers would think so too.

"We’re currently looking into possibilities to bring the game to PS4 as well but can’t say anything concrete at the moment."

Do you have any plans to launch on PS4? 

We’re currently looking into possibilities to bring the game to PS4 as well but can’t say anything concrete at the moment.

Will the game will feature Xbox One X specific enhancements. What can players expect if they are playing the game on Xbox One X? Is 4K/60fps on the cards?

The game does not support 4K, but runs more smoothly on Xbox One X.

How is the game running on the original Xbox One, frame rate and resolution wise?

It’s 1080p and 30fps locked.

And the frame rate and resolution on Switch?

720p, 30fps locked when undocked.

Next gen is coming sooner or later. From a development perspective, what is your biggest expectation from PS5 and Xbox Scarlett?

As long as great games can be released on these platforms and if it’s possible even for small developers to make an entry, I am completely happy with anything the future holds for us.

"As long as great games can be released on these platforms and if it’s possible even for small developers to make an entry, I am completely happy with anything the future holds for us."

Do you think cross platform will be one of the defining features of next-gen consoles?

Thank goodness this has not been relevant to me so far. However, as a developer I would look forward to having as many options available as possible.

What is your take on the ongoing drama of loot boxes and microtransactions?

I think regulations will come whether we like them or not. Until then, everyone has to decide for him/herself whether they want participate or not. But rest assured, Windscape won’t have any of that kind of stuff.