Hack 'N' Slash's Early Access Trailer Is Just The Greatest
Welcome back, the '90s
Double Fine's Hack 'N' Slash piqued my curiosity when I saw (and video-ed) its ultra-clever hacking antics last month, and soon it will give you the keys to its sparkling kingdom of 1s and 0s. Since it's a videogame, that of course means a trailer is in order, lest people just stand in place, slack-jawed, like racers who've yet to hear a starting gun. In the modern gaming world, we are lost without trailers. They tell us where to go, what to buy, how to live. It's a chilling thought, but look! A funny video on the Internet and huh what was I even talking about again?
Yep, that's pretty much exactly how hacking works.
Despite being billed as an Early Access launch trailer, however, Hack 'N' Slash, somewhat mystifyingly, still won't hit Steam for another few weeks. Wrote Double Fine:
"Hack ‘N’ Slash, our upcoming puzzle adventure game about hacking and reverse engineering, is just weeks away from its Steam Early Access release! The game will be available at launch on PC, Mac, and Linux for $14.99."
Inexpensive, innovative, and (n)hopefully really good. There's huge potential in the concept, and having it run the Early Access gauntlet makes a lot of sense, too. I mean, Hack 'N' Slash's core mechanic centers around discovering new and inventive ways to break the game, so it stands to reason that once players start cracking it open Double Fine will be able to design even more devious puzzles to take advantage of player-uncovered loopholes.
So that's pretty exciting. Between this, Watch_Dogs, and Transistor, it's looking like May will be the month of cyberpunk hack 'n' slashes, in pretty much every possible sense of those words.