Upstart developer Stray Bombay wants to give you a new way to connect with your friends in its upcoming cooperative shooter, The Anacrusis. This is a Left 4 Dead-style adventure where you and a crew of friends must take on hordes of aliens on an abandoned starship (the Anacrusis). Stray Bombay revealed the game today as part of the Summer Game Fest, and it plans to release the first episodes of the ongoing, replayable adventure in the near future. It is coming to PC, Xbox, and Game Pass later this year.
Now that word “episodes” might scare some people off, but just think of them as game updates. Stray Bombay is treating these episodes like Hitman 2016. The idea is to give players a breadth of content that can demonstrate what the game can be, but the studio also expects people to play these areas repeatedly. The hope is that fans will build an intimate relationship with the levels while also getting new story beats and character lines with each new playthrough.
The episodic structure is a way of containing these experiences, and it speaks to how the studio will release new content in the future.
To help facilitate the intended replayability, Stray Bombay is also focusing on having lots of weapons and perks to add variety in terms of playstyle. Early in a run, you might pick up a firearm that completely changes the way you think about taking out enemies. And the expectation is that you could spend the rest of a run designing your build around that.
That kind of variety is key to keeping a game like The Anacrusis feeling fresh, and it’s something that the developers are keen to get feedback on from players.
You can add The Anacrusis to your wish list now on Steam.