Exekiller is back!

 I walked through the desert on a horse with no name.

Is seems like so far past in a distant life with a long forgotten progenitor of the current 'me'; but I did once ago talk about my excitement for a, then recently revealed, game known as Exekiller. It was very much one of those indie projects that rode in on the wave of disappointment following the release of Cyberpunk 2077's base product. That CDPR origin title was a game that shot like electricity through the community imparting an excitement for the cyberpunk sub genre of entertainment only to leave that same community wanting after a game that wasn't what a lot of us were expecting. In such a void between expectation and reality, there lay a great opportunity for other smaller teams to lay down their own projects and ideas to fill that gaping maw in our hearts. Exekiller was one of the more impressive projects that we saw teased in that space, a single player bounty-hunter-style first person title with heavy Wild West influences and a visual palette very reminiscent of the ominous abandoned zone in Blade Runner 2049.

Of course as with any game that slaps down it's promise of what it wants to be before anything else, there's a healthy degree of scepticism that one would be prudent to maintain. Many of these concept-style trailers are as much about gauging public interest as heralding a real in-development project, and one can hardly observe the world of start-up indie games without acknowledging the endless stream of over ambitious and under-provided ideas that get announced every other week with no possible chance at someday releasing. (Just take a look at The Day Before's video.) But something about Exekiller cut through my hesitations, maybe the very deliberate and explicit visual intent, maybe the concept which shared similarities to the long-cancelled Prey 2 I used to fantasize about, somehow, someway, I believed we'd see this game again.

And here we are, a few years older and wiser, seeing this game progress to the point of an actual trailer and a real Steam page where you can wishlist the thing. Of course, pretty much any game can get itself a steam page if they kick back enough to papa Valve; but acquiring that page is at least an important step to existing. (And if they're smart enough perhaps the team went the actual distance to get their name trademarked in their home territory, because god knows we don't need that omission becoming a trend of development.) I have found myself, in idle drifts of laconic daydreaming, thinking back on whatever happened to this game, and it's so very gratifying to know all that spent thought-energy was not disappearing into the void. Rather now I have genuine gameplay trailer to hyper analyse and critique to an obsessive degree as the game hones in on what it actually intends to be. And what it intends to be really sounds right up my alley if their Steam page can be trusted.

A semi-open world  environment with hub spaces and a gradually uncovered map brings to mind thoughts of Immersive Sims like Deus Ex or Dishonoured, both of which make excellent blueprints for a narrative built around bounty hunting and adventurous sci-fi cowboy contract work. The self-appointed title of a 'linear narrative with non-linear choices' might sound a little paradoxical, but I see that as a way of conveying little choices that build up in a manner that might effect the ending more than the course of the game; which is a decent way of depicting consequence without bloating a project to the scale of overambition. And I quite like the distinctive approaching to 'player progression' that isn't so much tied to EXP and Levelling as much as to mods and augmentations. A fine way to propel the value of equipping iterative and more powerful variations of technology in a manner which I imagine will be synchronous to the world narrative. 

As opposed to some other recent gameplay footage that might have been doing the rounds recently, Exekiller decided to present itself with a tight little sequence which displayed the desolation of the Western Style world in a small but stark location. All we see it what amounts to an abandoned road-side pit stop, but from that one location alone we get a pretty good idea of the elements which make up the Exekiller world. For one, we get to see the holographic dashboard slathered in 80's style sci-fi type font, deftly informing the retro futuristic approach to the visual style. Additionally, if this footage is anything to go off from, the game seems eager to blend together post apocalyptic devastation with the classic iconography of the desert west; bleached skeleton bones and cacti dot the sands, it's all very 'new age Fallout New Vegas'. I love it.

One of the well-drunk design wells of modern exploration games is a basic handle of environmental storytelling, and just our small glimpse of a player picking through the turned over remains of what looks like a roadside diner certainly spells the framework for some great ground made over in that department. From this location in particular I quite liked the flickering and sparking electronic display boards creating some flicker of life to contrast with the otherwise dead and buried feel of the washed out place. It's all very expertly dressed from a design standpoint. All the player tools and equipment fly under the retro-ism design style, from the motion detector to the carried revolver, coming together to create an identity that taps the same sort of visual motif that CDPR played with in Cyberpunk- only for a different decade of design, of course.

As this is an alpha snippet of gameplay, all positives and negatives are subject to the changing whims of the design process; but if I'm pressed to find negatives I would have to start with the main character's voice. It's quite clear that the VA chosen lacks the vocal range for the part he's playing, and next to the surprising quality of everything else in the trailer his lines stick out like an oddly cast thumb. There's also a moment when actual robotic enemies appear and there's a distinct lack of impact in how the guns shoot. I'm not bemoaning the lack of iron sights, I actually like the stylistic choice, there's just a missing punch to the audio and visual stimuli that discredits the revolver. But even than, just the slight tease of the player kicking over an object and then shooting it for an explosive effect erases a lot of my worry about how this game's combat might feel. Play on systems like that some more and there's no limit to the amount of dynamic combat encounters the team could design. Like a more action combat version of 'Divinity: Original Sin's elemental combination system! (Maybe I'm overhyping myself again, it was just one explosive in the trailer.)

It really isn't fair for a game like Exekiller to look the way it does, playing to my heartstrings in all of it's weak spots. You're just going to bring out a game in the same genre as Cyberpunk, with a premise borrowed from the cancelled Prey 2 and a general visual look of a more modernised Fallout New Vegas? That ain't a tiny bit fair at all, it's like this game was designed specifically to attract me most of all. And of course, like a rabbit led on by a carrot on a string, I'm hopping along totally cognisant of the possibilities but blindly loyal nonetheless. Paradark, as I believe the studio is known, have had the benefit of an interested community since their reveal; but I wonder if they know quite how ravenously some of us have wanted a game that looks just like this. I don't mean to apply undue pressure on a difficult process, but darn if Exekiller isn't looking more and more like my personal indie sweetheart game every moment. Count on me keeping my eye out for more details!

ExeKiller

 You people venerate savagery, and you will die- savagely!

I have a lot of respect for indie games, and not just the one's that catch my attention as games-to-play either, I really do. Beyond the technical aspect of sitting down and making an interesting video game with a group of, usually, enthusiasts and no huge company behind you is already commendable, but I just fall over for the bravery it takes to put one's own work out like that for everyone to see. To take that risk, put yourself on the line, and slap it on the internet, it takes crazy gallons worth of guts. Even more so when the game we're talking about seems to be, internationally or otherwise, placing itself alongside of the most high profile screw-up games in video game history. A game that cost hundreds of millions, and you're just going to make an indie game in a world that seems to vaguely lean on that image. Thems some real balls friend, and I appreciate them.

Okay, so maybe it's unfair to look at ExeKiller and say ""So you made your own Cyberpunk, did you?" 'cause, I mean- it's not like CD Projekt Red have a trademark on Cyberpunk, now do they? Actually, yes they probably do, what a stupid idea to call the franchise after the name of the genre. (No offence Mike Pondsmith, who definitely isn't reading this but I'm still going to exude non-offensive vibes from this blog) Rather, there can be more than one game who dives into the veritable visual ocean of Cyberpunk genre clichés, it's a wide ocean after all. And does the fact that both of these games have clear Bladerunner inspirations lend credence to the comparisons? Of course. But, we are talking about a AAA game against an Indie one so... you know, I'm just gonna say it: this feels like indie Cyberpunk. But... maybe that'll turn out for the best.

Here me out. What was the biggest problem with Cyberpunk? Well, I'd say it was overambition. These guys got one smash hit game out and suddenly decided they were the single greatest development team on the planet and were going to singlehandedly revolutionise genres much larger than them and helmed by other developers who are bigger than them. It was always going to be a bit of a mess and thus is the hubris that can come when your self image is bolstered by the plastered outward mug of a recently mega successful corporation. You lose the ability to look objectively at yourself and act with any modicum of rationale. There's no way for an Indie studio to get lost in themselves like that, (they can get lost in a bunch of other ways, but not that specific way) so maybe they'll have a better shot at creating a game which captures the feel of being an insignificant cog in a mega Corp funded machine.

And that is certainly the premise I seem to feel emanating from the reveal of this ExeKiller game, right from the getgo. And to be honest when I say this game is inspired by Bladerunner, it's actually much closer to the "World on the brink of extinction" side of that inspirational trail rather than the "technologically repressed mega future" angle. (There's your Cyberpunk distinction right there.) Set in a post apocalyptic world with whole heaps of red sand everywhere, ExeKiller tells the story of a dystopia roaming bounty hunter in the techno-future deciding the rule of law at the end of a loaded gun. There are cowboy outfits, flying cars, retro-futurism, stealth, and at least one line of dialogue that seems to have been affectionately lifted from The Mandalorian. And for a simple first trailer, it all looks shockingly good.

I'm being serious, judging purely from this introduction trailer, which is clearly made up of mostly (if not entirely) mock-up gameplay, these indie developers have a really strong vision they're shooting to nail down that will really rock if they can cut it. There's some high octane first person shooting with cinematic slow down effects and a gritty weight to the movement suite, bounty chases right out of that Prey 2 trailer Bethesda teased us all with in the far distant past, and even a little bit of car based shooting. Not to mention that the visual artists have done a great job in establishing a city-buried-in-sand environment to house this art-deco futurist architecture which really drums up images of duels at noon, blazing off in the sunset and other such wild west clichés that I'm sure the team were going for.  

Paradark Studio, who are the people claiming these intriguing little game trailer, seem to be a brand new studio right out of Poland (Uh oh, hope they're not CDPR's neighbours or this relationship could get complicated) and I have to say I'm routing for their first game a lot more than I would have expected to. I mean that whilst baring in mind that there isn't any game right now, which brings me back to the Cyberpunk comparisons a little bit because this was more or less the same sort of situation we were all in back when that big gameplay reveal dropped. Except I have a bit more hope here. That hope is, however, admittedly rather blind. I can't seem to find anything on the studio regarding the team's pedigree and they haven't put out any other game before, but after this trailer I can at least say they've got good visual designers and animators aboard. Whether they can actually make that game a thing, is less clear.

But I could easily just ignore the boring little logistics behind the nitty gritty of this game and just bask in something novel- a wild west future game; how cool. I adore Red Dead Redemption, and I have a soft spot for some of the more inventive westerns out there, so this title just snuck into my heart before I knew what was up. The feeling of untamed wilderness lashed by morale ambiguity and ruled by man unleashed, it slides into the naked Cyberpunk spotlight so beautifully it's a wonder that there aren't more crossovers of the genres. In fact, one might call these genre's distant cousins of one another, with this game being something of a family reunion. It tickles me to look at this game, which is certainly more than I should be feeling for an indie game and especially one of this style. Gods, look at me. Getting all flustered like a schoolgirl again, handily forgetting the last time my heart was shattered. You'd a thought I'd grown up by now!

I have to say, trying to keep atop of the gaming world is getting harder and harder with all these exciting new titles landing day-by-day; I'm still trying to wrap my head around Baldur's Gate III Patch 6 and suddenly my stupid Steam wishlist is breaking 150 again, all because of cool little indie nuggets like this. It's a good problem to have though, to be constantly seeing bright little stars of ideas shining through and grabbing your attention, it reminds us that though it may not look it, there are still sectors of the industry that can be fresh and still excite, and we're not stuck with the stodgy mainstays begging for something different and new. So I hope the best for this team, and even more for their game, and hope that it resembles even half the amount of promise that trailer exhibits.