I'm After Before: First Video Of Prehistoric Strategy Game
Because I want it.
I've been following Before since creator Bill Lowe first started sharing screenshots of the caveman god game on Twitter. I responded by favouriting some of the tweets with screenshots in them; Garry Newman of Facepunch Studios responded by hiring Lowe and a team of others to make the game happen. The first trailer showing their work is below.
The singing starts as the camera pans over some sort of deer or moose, and so I imagine it's him singing for the rest of the trailer.
This video is a direct feed from its broadcast at The Game Awards, since it hasn't yet been uploaded to Before's own YouTube channel. This raises many questions, chief of which is what kind of person whoops and hollers at the end of a trailer showing three minutes of somber landscapes? Perhaps it was, "WOOOOOOOOOh-at lovely art direction, it depicts the integrity of the natural world."
While the trailer suggests it's early days, the team have been blogging about the project for a little while. On the subject of what you do in it:
The game controls much like a real-time strategy or “god” game, though I think of the player as more collective conciousness than deity. You command members of your fledgling tribe to perform various actions and pursue goals; moving around the landscape, hunting animals and gathering resources.
The core of the experience is survival; guiding your tribe through their life in an often dangerous world. Ensuring that they find food, keep an eye out for dangerous predators and find a safe place to sleep each night.
That post goes on to describe it as a sandbox, where you can build boats to cross oceans, explore underground caves, meet other tribes, and hopefully end up with a tribe that feels "unique; the culture they developer and the mark they leave on their surroundings serving a visual history of the time spent playing."
Which sounds intriguing. It obviously is early days, but Before is worth following.