Laaag! Strafe delayed

Bloodsoaked faux-'90s FPS Strafe [official site] has been delayed a touch, publishers Devolver Digital have announced. It was due later this month, on the 28th, but is now slated to arrive on May 9th. Strafe, to refresh your memory, is a roguelikelike FPS with procedurally-generated levels, a throwback style, and so very much gore. I find the wacky exaggerated xtremeness of everything surrounding the game more obnoxious than endearing but our Adam played a bit last year and said it was good stuff.

It's not quite as simple as it may seem, Adam said. Even the gallons of blood have actual systemic purposes:

"The use of the spurting and splattering blood as a functional element of the game rather than a cosmetic detail is telling. This is a game that initially might seem slight or even brazenly dumb, but it's full of devilish details. That acid blood burns, for instance, but you might be able to wash it away if you applied another liquid to the surface it spilled across. There's a great deal more interaction than initially appears to be the case and the way that the visual design assists and occasionally tricks the player is careful and considered."

For washing away acid, I will push myself past this dislike of its dressing, from trailers full of ha-ha-hilarious quotes to the website's throwback hyperbole. Contrasted with the sublime Devil Daggers, it seems so wakka wacky kooky-koo. Devil Daggers grooves on '90s FPSs in a big way, even lovingly replicating errors of early 3D, but Strafe is dressed up as an old joke. Something that'd be on the back page of those old printed websites old men used to write. That joke was funny when I was thirteen but now, twenty years later, it's pretty tired. Anyway. I trust Adam's opinion that it is a fun video game to play.

Strafe is coming to Windows, Mac, and Linux. Devolver don't give a reason for a delay but I'll guess it's because it's not as finished as they want it to be, yeah?