Notmycar is battle royale but with gun-toting cars and a tiresome attitude
F2P, out next month
"Everything else is just a walking simulator" is just one example of the bug-eyed posturing with which Skybound Games announce Notmycar, their attempt to snaffle a piece of Fort-Legs pie with a free-to-play, automotive-based battle royale.
Notmycar takes the attitude that, if the car-wrecks don't bring all the boys to the yard, maybe being massively obnoxious will. "Are you tired of the same games day in and day out?", reads the YouTube blurb. Uh, the whole world says no? Still: I dig the concept.
Hold your nose and give this a watch:
This sneering, chest-puffing tack is a shame, as melding the trend of the moment with a destruction derby is pretty solid concept. I've always enjoyed cars-wot-shoot, and being made of multi-tonne metal might just be an effective remedy for batroyale-curious types who are wary of getting ritually insta-murdered in the head from half a mile away. If Notmycar can leave the cod-macho posturing at the marketing strategy door, I'd be game for this.
The turgidly testosteronal motif recurs across the Notmycar website ("buckle up, buttercup"), but I'm cheered by glimpses of cars with glider wings, cars with gingham paintjobs, cars that are obviously from Mad Max films and cars fighting amongst wind turbines.
Notmycar - a truly terrible name, presented in a truly terrible all-lower-case style we will not be employing here - comes to Steam Early Access on April 5. It's free to play, and plans on an early access journey of around six months. It does seem unlikely that it can go toe-to-toe with the big guns, but then no-one saw Apeleg's titanic success coming.
And, while developer NMC Studios are newcomers, publisher Skybound Games, part of Robert 'Walking Dead' Kirkman's multimedia empire, surely has cash to flash. But maybe flash it at a different marketing agency, eh?
Nevertheless, I'm up for a ride in a gingham death-machine. Let's see how this thing's looking in two weeks' time.