Flat Earth Games' Metrocide is a top-down, stealthy, arcade, cyberpunk, assassination game, and great now I have to order another pack of commas. The first trailer made my eyebrows raise almost up to my hairline, and they still haven't returned to their resting position, so thanks a lot, Flat Earth, for that. Now the devs have released a video walkthrough, walking us through a few assassinations in the game's first metropolitan area. Fans of Hitman, Gunpoint, or the birdseye-view of the original Grand Theft Autos are going to want to stick around.
The above video shows a world swimming in detail, but my favourite is Metrocide's randomly generated naming system, drawn from the 2013 US census. Your goal in each area is to leave it, and you do this by accruing cash through assassinations on named targets, marks that can be taken out through a variety of means. Stealthily kill someone—for instance, by shooting them out of sight of cameras and then dumping their body in a pond, as per an example in the above video—and you'll receive a cash bonus. (Cash can be spent on upgrades, like the decoy up there.) I'm a little worried that I'll need a magnifying glass to see what's going on, but aside from that this is a very encouraging video, suggesting a game as open to experimentation as I was hoping.
Metrocide is coming to Steam Early Access in mid-October, for $6.99. The price will go up to $12.99 for the full release, which is expected "late 2014". We interviewed the developers earlier in the year.
