New Game from Former Bulletstorm Devs

Way back in August, when the sun was shiny and I didn’t wake up to see more goddamn snow every morning, three managers from Polish developer People Can Fly—the studio behind Epic Games’ Bulletstorm—left the company to start something new, though their plans weren’t clear at the time. But a press release published today has cleared up that mystery in favor of some new ones…supernatural ones.

Former People Can Fly managers Adrian Chmielarz, Andrzej Poznanski, and Michal Kosieradzki have formed a new studio called The Astronauts (a fitting title considering the name of their last company). Their first game is called The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and it’s billed as a “weird fiction horror” game coming to PC sometime this year. Want to know what the heck it’s about? Here’s the official description:

“As a detective with the supernatural ability to visualize scenes of lethal crimes, you investigate the kidnapping of a young boy, hoping to save him before it’s too late. The investigation leads you to a beautiful mountain area, where you come across a severely mutilated body of one of the kidnappers. Using both your paranormal skill and modern detective tools you discover the mystery behind the trail of corpses in the valley, the roots of an ancient force ruling the area, and the fate of the kidnapped boy.”

I like it. I like it a lot. There are no crazy guns, and the game seems like it’ll have an emphasis on story and character, and has an interesting power for its main character. Now, will this interesting power translate into an interesting gameplay mechanic? That I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to finding out.

Here’s what Chmielarz, credited as the game’s designer, had to say:

“What we care about the most is that the players feel like they’re really there. Immersion is our number one priority. It’s a game about exploration and discovery. We’re not abandoning the gameplay—on the contrary: we’re trying to strip it down to the bone and make sure it’s always meaningful and truly makes the experience better.”

Be sure to watch the teaser trailer above, if you haven’t yet. What do you think? I, for one, am excited to be getting a game that I probably haven’t yet seen before. It seems like this will be, at the very least, different. Sometimes that’s all you need to get a little buzz going.