As part of DreadXP’s Indie Horror Showcase, Philisophic Games has pulled back the curtain on Hellpunk, a horror game about hitting things with things.
I’ve got a dearth of information here, but Hellpunk seems to be a game trying to nail the ever-elusive feeling of melee combat in a first-person game. It uses somewhat lo-fi graphics, and all the press material I have just says it’s about angrily killing foes. The foes consist of CRT-headed dudes and other assorted weirdos. Don’t worry about creating CRT-headed orphans, however, because apparently, you’re fighting “through the depths of the human mind.” The very angry depths.
To be fair, though, the short, 22-second trailer says a lot. Beyond the trippy visuals, first-person melee is a carrot that few have even touched. 2005’s Condemned: Criminal Origins is often cited as one of the few games to even come close to making it work. I’m currently straining to think of another game that did it well following that. Doom (2016)’s glory kills come to mind, but it’s just hitting a button and watching Doomguy be all vicious. That really doesn’t count.
So, yeah, that’s all I got, aside from the fact that it calls itself “Murder-punk.” We’ll have to wait and see if Hellpunk manages to achieve what has been lost.
Hellpunk is coming to PC via Steam. Its page is available to wishlist, but there is no target release window.
