Some of the Cyperpunk 2077 developers left CDPR and formed Starward Industries to work on a new game: The Invincible. What is the game about? Well... you're about to find out.
First of all: Why is this interesting? Because this small team of developers worked on Dying Light, The Witcher and Cyperpunk 2077. Think what you want you want about Cyberpunk 2077, but that's a quality resume. That's high level stuff right here people. Gaming resumes don't get much better than that. So if people like that are working on a new IP, we're interested.
Where Is The Invincible Set? What Is The Game About?
The Invincible is based on the novels of a famed Polish author – a formula that worked well enough for The Witcher. In this case, the author is Stanislaw Lem and the novel is from 1964. The novel was one of the very first to explore the ideas of microbots, smartdust, artificial swarm intelligence and the evolution of non-living matter – 'necroevolution'.
Yup... the man was ahead of his time.
Here's the rough plot-starter from the original novel:
"A very powerful and heavily-armed interstellar spacecraft called Invincible lands on the planet Regis III, which seems uninhabited and bleak, to investigate the loss of her sister ship, Condor. During the investigation, the crew finds evidence of a form of quasi-life, born through evolution of autonomous, self-replicating machines, apparently left behind by an alien civilization ship which landed, with a crew dead from an accident, on Regis III a very long time ago."
How cool does that sound? Obviously, with the game sharing the book's name, it will follow the book's themes closely – a fact also confirmed by the devs themselves.
"We also researched and looked at real-life designs of spacesuits, spaceships, vehicles, tools, and more that were created by engineers in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Some of their designs also had that distinct feel – the red space suit is a classic. Hopefully this mix, plus our own little flavour will be something that people will resonate with."
Words directly from Technical Director Daniel Betke, who sat down with PC Games to talk about the game.
As you can tell by the quote and the pictures, the game's aesthetic is all about the Cold War Era and inspired by Soviet themes.
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What We Know About The Gameplay in The Invincible
Project Leader Marek Markuszewsk described the gameplay as follows:
"The gameplay is quite diverse, including exploration, navigation, face to face discussions with NPCs, operating various equipment which is all analogue, solving clues, interacting with robots, piloting drones, crunching data, even driving vehicles. A large part of interaction will include radio comms, sometimes dense, even tense at times, often intimate, closely related to the unfolding events – in that way The Invincible can remind of Firewatch."
Apart from Firewatch he also notes 'Alien: Isolation' as a huge inspiration, so we can expect the gameplay to be a combination of those two games.
Other than that we can mostly only go off the pictures at this point, and it does look a lot like it's in first-person. Of course, this could easily still be subject to change. It might be that the third person characters are simply not developed yet. Also, Starward Industries is probably keeping a close eye on Cyberpunk 2077 (you know, since the devs worked on that too) and are likely quite aware of the high demand for third person in that game.
As for the story, Technical Director Daniel Betke had this to say:
“First and foremost, expect a really immersive story that we hope would make Lem smile and nod with approval. That is our main goal here as a studio: give appreciation to the man we read as kids and inspired us to look beyond what’s now.”
The Invincible: Release Date & Platforms
According to Project Leader Marek Markuszewsk, who also sat down with PC Games, the game is planned to be released in the second half of 2021. Naturally though, COVID and its further development might still impact this release date.
What we do know is what platforms the game will be released on: The Invincible is coming to PS5, PC, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
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