Former Cyberpunk and Bioshock devs reveal eerie post-apocalyptic open world shooter Hornet
Co-op, weird monsters and a "procedurally assisted" environment
Antistatic Studios, a new outfit made up of former Cyberpunk 2077, Bioshock and Borderlands developers, have announced their debut title, a PvE co-op tactical shooter set on a haunted, post-apocalyptic continent. They're codenaming it Hornet. The announcement trailer is sort of Lethal Company meets STALKER with a bodycam found footage perspective. It's quite the cocktail of tropes, though I'll take this over another "Soulslike roguelite deckbuilder" or similar.
Before you read on I must warn you that this is one of those games with mildly exhausting ARG marketing. The announcement materials are framed as a heavily redacted undercover report, and they've knocked together a fake (OR IS IT???) conspiracy theory website to sweeten the deal. I feel like I'm being pandered to, but then again, I am a miserable old git, and should know better than to rain on the parade of some innocent, hard-working marketing team.
In Hornet, or whatever it's eventually called, you're a field agent working for Mortfield Industries. Your mission is to scour an irradiated and decidedly eldritch wilderness for paranormal activity. The landscape is billed as "a procedurally assisted open world full of dynamic events, secrets, and encounters with multiple factions and entities." I'm not clear on how "procedurally assisted" stands apart from "procedurally generated", but I'm guessing that it means that major elements of the setting are created by hand, with randomised bits floating on top.
The aforesaid faux-conspiracy website includes a blogpost about a creature who could be one of the game's enemies - a tall, emaciated woman with twitching claws and a lovely smile. "Small arms fire may stun or slow the entity but will not neutralize it even with copious ammunition," the post observes. "The only known containment method concerns binding the entity with chains forged of beryllium bronze and inscribed with thaumaturgical runes." Ooh, this is quite funky! I do like me a good rune. Hope that's a direct description of what you do in the game, rather than being flavour text.
It's possible the trailer above isn't how the game looks. There's key art on the studio's website which looks quite different, though comparably eerie and despairing. Here's a screen.
Antistatic's members include former Cyberpunk 2077 writer's room lead Lukasz Ludkowski, former Bioshock series lead environment artist Kris Teper, Starward Industries co-founder Maciej Miksztal, former Conan Exiles gameplay programmer Michal Koltun and former Project Winter community manager Gabriel Nordholm. It's certainly a team that's been around. The developers describe themselves as "committed to crafting worlds that are constantly evolving and respond to player actions, and to the immersive sim genre, where possibilities extend beyond the conventions of traditional video games".
Antistatic are demoing the thing at GDC in March, and are now staffing up for "full-scale production later this year". They're also doing closed playtests in the near future - hit up the Discord if you're interested. Naturally, Hornet doesn't have a release date for the moment.