Glitchpunk is GTA 2’s edgy younger cousin
The inspirations aren't just worn on its sleeve but tattooed up the arm and down its back, too
Prepare yourselves for an influx of *punk games. After the roaring success of World of Warpunk, The Witcher: Wildpunk, and PLUNKPUNK, there is now Glitchpunk. It’s a game that’s incredibly honest about its inspiration. I haven't seen top-down car-screeching like this since Grand Theft Auto 2. The snippets of the game in the trailer below at least look like messy fun, but it’s been a while since I saw a trailer get in the way of itself as much as Glitchpunk’s does. You kind of have to squint.
I'll have to go according to the game’s Steam page: “You are an android gifted with a special trait called "glitch": It enables you to go against your programming. Set out to destabilize the tyrannical governments of the post-nuclear world, it's up to you to craft your own agenda.”
Behind that headache of a trailer lies some pretty hefty promises. In the game’s four locations (in post-nuclear USA and Russia), there are a dozen gangs for you to help or hinder, each with their own quests to complete. The GTA influence isn’t just strong in the fussin’ and the fuedin’. When you try to escape from the police you’ll be shaking off wanted levels and tuning into bespoke radio stations with wacky adverts.
So what’s new in all this? Well, there's the overt future setting. You don’t get themes of “transhumanism” in GTA, and with the fanciful future stuff comes hacking, though we don’t know what form it’ll take. I enjoyed what I could make out of the action, but I hope that it takes its own path at some point. We already have a GTA2.
It has a 2021 release date, and there's a playable demo coming during next week's Steam Game Fastival.