Void Bastards, the strategic roguelike-ish shooter from Blue Manchu now has a launch date, broadcast to us by way of the uncaring depths of the web: May 29th. Inspired by System Shock 2 and Bioshock (and from the design director on each), it’s a darkly humoured stealthy FPS designed to pressure laborious strategic choices as you make your manner throughout an FTL-esque star-map stuffed with hazards. Resources of every kind are restricted, and each shot fired on a mission is one that you simply may want later. All of this wrapped up in a nifty comic-book aesthetic. See the announcement trailer beneath.
For these late to the celebration, Void Bastards has you enjoying as a procession of convicts used as expendable away-team fodder on an AI-run spaceship. Survive the mission and perhaps there’s freedom on the opposite facet. Survival means scavenging sources from an assortment of spacecraft, and each bullet appears valuable. You solely have just a few stock slots to fill, so generally you’ll have a gun wildly unsuited to a selected struggle, prompting evasion or improvised techniques. If all else fails, you possibly can simply seal doorways shut and lock off areas of a ship you contemplate too dangerous to danger coming into.
And as that was a far-too-brief have a look at the game, right here’s an eighteen minute developer walkthrough, courtesy of IGN.
While I can not scientifically verify it, it does seem to be the RPS treehouse has been buzzing with anticipation for Void Bastards for some time now. Alex Wiltshire had a chat about the game with Blue Manchu founder Jon Chey here, and it’s fairly excessive on my listing regardless that longer clips of the game really feel wildly aggravating. One factor that Blue Manchu have made clear is that generally a state of affairs is simply unfair, otherwise you don’t have the gear to deal with it. In most circumstances, you possibly can again out of a mission, however generally even that comes with its personal useful resource prices.
The fight in Void Bastards seems completely different from style normal, too. While there’s a handful of normal weapons to go in your major, your massive damage-dealer within the secondary slot tends to be extra particular. Some of those barely even rely as weapons, with the Clusterflak greatest utilized by simply firing it right into a room, slamming the door shut and ready just a few seconds for the explosions to cease. Of course, ammo of that energy degree is uncommon, too. I’m hopeful that Blue Manchu have managed to hit that stability of fixed strain, learnability and chaos that solely the perfect roguelikes have.
Void Bastards launches on Steam and Humble on May 29th, though the ultimate worth hasn’t been introduced but. It’s revealed by Humble Bundle.
Disclosure: Cara Ellison, previously of the RPS treehouse, is narrative designer on Void Bastards, amongst different tasks like Vampire: Bloodlines 2. If she finally ends up engaged on many extra games we’ll simply work out some type of listing of ‘what she ISN’T engaged on’ to avoid wasting on disclosure house.
