The Lesser Knowns
- Details
- Created on Friday, 24 April 2015 11:43
- Written by KTP
The Lesser Knowns: Upcoming games that you don’t have to be afraid to get excited about.
The upcoming blockbuster games that we used to get excited for are currently getting packaged with a feeling of dread and worry. The recently announced Star Wars: Battlefront has a ton of features that have been stripped compared to the originals. Halo 5's hype machine is being met with a collective "meh" due to the borefest of Halo 4 and no one will be surprised if Ubisoft fucks up The Division (please don't). Don't worry guys. There will be a new Call of Duty every year that will continue the mediocrity of the industry. Here we will highlight some of the lesser known near future releases that each are trying something new or at least putting some spit and polish on tried and true mechanics. You won't find Heroes of the Storm or Star Citizen previews here. These are the lesser known dogs that look like they have as much fight to stand against their big budget counterparts.
STRAFE
Welcome 1996 where your internet came from a phone line, ultra-violence was mandatory in video games, and Quake was king. STRAFE aimes to take you back to that FPS era promising to take you to the glory years of gibs. The game is going to be procedurely generated, which looks like it'll give a solid amount of variety through buckets of gore.
Release date: Early 2016
Squad
If you never played the Project Reality mod for Battlefield 2, stop what you are doing and play it. It took the gameplay from BF2 and tried to make it as realistic as possible creating some of the most tense firefights in a FPS. The core created of that mod have moved on to Squad where it aims to be the spiritual successor of Project Reality and dump it into Unreal Engine 4.
Release date: Mid/Late 2015
The Mandate
Ambitious is the word. The Mandate seeks to create a sort of rpg/sci-fi/strategy game. It aims to create an experience where the crew and your environment develop through your actions so losing a red shirt in the game should mean something. There will be ship battles in space as well as being able to board ships. I should mention that it's also going to have co-op which add another layer of crazy to an awesome idea of a game.
Release date: Beta late 2015 / Main Launch early 2016
SOMA
Remember how scary Amnesia: The Dark Descent was? Imagine this set off world in the future where machines are starting to imitate human behavior. I'm willing to bet that there is a story revolving around human existentialism and told in the most fucked up way possible. Those that are looking something different in their horror may want to check this out.
Release date: Late 2015
Project HON
This trailer just came out of nowhere and blew fans of mechs away. The details of this game are more mysterious than fucking Batman, so let's hope this gets release and doesn't turn into a botched job from NCSoft.
Release date: Unknown
Routine
Routine takes place on the moon and is a procedural horror game that looks pretty tense. How you interact with the tech seem pretty cool and your weapon as night vision/e-tool/laser gun seems pretty damn cool too. This one was long thought to be in development hell, but the creator popped up out of nowhere to let us know it's still being worked on. The developer doesn't believe in alpha releases so we should see a fully released game when it's done.
Release date: When it's done.
Lost Ark
This is Diablo with the graphics on steroids. Here's hoping the Korean game will have actual gameplay and is strong on its own.
Release date: Mid 2015 in South Korea / US Unknown
Angels Fall First
This one looked like it was going to be another failed development, until it got picked up on Steam Greenlight. Imagine the Assault mode in Unreal Tournament 2004 with more depth and on a bigger scale and you can see the potential this game will have.
Release date: Unknown
