Sabotage Sabotaged: Now Velvet Assassin
Ever fancied changing your name to let you feel more enigmatic, enticing, glorious? Sabotage certainly did. It's now called Velvet Assassin.
There's just something wrong with that. "Velvet Assassin". It just sounds... unsettling. But then, a rose by any other name is... well, actually "Velvet Assassin" would be an excellent name for a rose. Quickly, someone breed a new one and name it that. The point, wherever it went, is that it's still going to be a game about sneaky-sneaky WW2 action. There's some footage and comments if you can sneak past the searchlights below.
The game, developed by Replay Studios, features the adventures of WW2 spy, Violette Summer. She's based on real-world war hero Violette Szabo, who kerazeee WACKY publishers Gamecock choose to honour with the following video:
(Sorry about the autoplaying. Blame Gamecock's grandmothers)
Gamecock's reason for the name change is, well, honest.
"Rather than a trite, overused, and generic working title like Sabotage, Velvet Assassin captures the heart of what we’re trying to accomplish," said Sascha Jungnickel, Creative Director at Replay Studios. "From the start we’ve wanted a game with a strong female lead that stays true to the history of Violette Szabo while pulling players into a world of dark intrigue."
A slightly more positive angle comes from Gamecock's Executive Producer, Tim Hesse.
"Most of the time a name change happens because it’s not ‘catchy’ enough or because the marketing team didn’t like it. I have to say, the Replay crew have outdone themselves by making Violette into one of the best looking stealth-killers ever. This game has come so far since last year that Sabotage just didn’t do the game justice – Velvet Assassin sums up every aspect that makes this game great."
Every aspect. I'm going to go up to people in the street and say, "Can you guess what Velvet Assassin is?" I bet everyone says, "A WW2 stealth action game with dynamic shadows based on the life of Violette Szabo," and absolutely no one slaps me before calling the police.
Anyway, mocking the name aside, it looks like it could be a decent bit of sneaky fun. (You can put that on the box, Gamecock).