I have spent an inordinate amount of time playing Blue Manchu’s two previous games, Void Bastards and Wild Bastards. The first is a spaceship-exploring first-person roguelite with astonishing amounts of variety and replayability, while the second is a bonkers robo-Western roguelite strategic shooter played across a tactical map. So I meet the news from PC Gamer of the indie studio’s third, Godzone 6, with high expectations and open arms. It promises to be the most choice-driven immersive sim game studio boss Jonathan Chey has ever worked on, and Jonathan Chey worked on System Shock 2, Thief: The Dark Project, and BioShock.
Chey, in fact, has one of the most enviable resumes in the games industry, also having his name on other all-time classics like Freedom Force vs the 3rd Reich, Tribes: Vengeance, and Thief II: The Metal Age, as well as the extremely splendid 2019 release Void Bastards. Oh, and he was a co-founder of BioShock creators Irrational Games. So, you know, someone to keep half an eye on.
According to Chey, Wild Bastards didn’t perform as well as Void Bastards, partly because the similarity of the titles and the overlaps between the games causing many to feel disappointed that the second game wasn’t a direct sequel. (It remains a magnificent game, however.) So this time the team is going way deeper, creating a full-on roguelite immersive sim, and that’s the most welcome news imaginable.
Grotesque mutants
Explaining the nature of the depth of Godzone 6‘s intended variety, Chey tells PCG, “it’s not just, what kind of gun am I going to build, but am I going to build a gun at all? You could be a hacker instead, or a stealth character, or essentially a magic spellcaster. Or you could be a character that runs computer programs, or is tiny and goes into little spaces that other characters can’t. Or you’re a giant or a flying character.”
Apparently, we’ll be beginning each run by creating a grotesque mutant with a bespoke set of skills, and then seeing how long they can survive the procedurally generated levels. So instead of picking a class at the start of a lengthy linear imsim, this way we can keep experimenting with new styles of play for each attempt. (What Blue Manchu has done so very well in its previous two games is create roguelites with a strong sense of progress and persistence, where runs are temporary but your journey through the game remains.)
The game is still quite early, but players should get access to the development through demos and previews, to try to maintain contact with the game’s base in a way Chey thinks was lost during Wild Bastards. Quite when that will be is not clear, but when the guy who was project manager on System Shock 2 says his next game has even more choice over how it’s played, it’s likely to be worth waiting.