The minute gamers step into one of many tactical shooter DarkSwarm’s procedurally generated missions, they’re confronted by the titular Swarm: parasitic aliens who take quite a lot of types. The Swarm is horrifying from the second gamers first witness it: it is quick, it is highly effective, and it is good. DarkSwarm’s foes are a chillingly efficient use of physique horror, as many enemies nonetheless have recognizably human our bodies which have been reworked into one thing actually nightmarish.
Sport Rant spoke to Bitfire Video games CEO Hans Oxmond and DarkSwarm Sport Director Jonas Raagard concerning the inspiration behind the Swarm. The 2 are massive followers of shooters and horror video games alike, and cited Alien Swarm, GTFO, and the original Helldivers as main inspirations. Nonetheless, as Raagard defined, the pair needed to take issues in an much more excessive course, putting a bigger give attention to physique horror and satisfying, gory alien kills when making DarkSwarm.
The Factor And Different Physique Horror Classics Impressed The Swarm
On condition that DarkSwarm options alien foes and a minimum of a few of its ranges happen on spaceships and area stations, the Bitfire Video games crew had to make sure that they weren’t simply copying style requirements such because the iconic Alien films. Ranging from a need to create one thing that resembled video games they loved and wouldn’t be thought-about “too Alien,” the crew virtually instantly settled on a physique horror-heavy course for the sport. Stated Raagard of the event course of:
“I simply sort of began engaged on these physique horror aliens, as a result of I needed one thing that did not appear like something from the Alien universe. It is a bit extra rooted in The Factor. It is this alien virus that mutates folks from inside – and it is actually nasty.”
The affect of The Thing films can positively be seen in among the enemies gamers will face in DarkSwarm. There are tiny however quite a few new child creatures, resembling a cross between a spider and a human hand, that burst from pulsing pink eggs. There are shambling bipedal types lined in wounds and blisters, nonetheless retaining their human form regardless of all of the horrors which have been inflicted upon them. As they full increasingly more missions, gamers will face huge worm-like beings, multi-armed creatures able to taking pictures fireballs, big fleshy spiderwebs that lure them in place, and far, way more. The Swarm is continually evolving, and so new enemy sorts are all the time exhibiting up all through the sport.
So A lot Terror Comes From The Data That The DarkSwarm Was As soon as Human
Brilliantly, DarkSwarm by no means lets its gamers overlook that the sinister, intelligent, constantly evolving aliens they’re preventing was human. “Every part that you just’re killing right here was an individual,” Raagard confirmed. “Bioprinted folks — they have been continuously printing folks and sending them to those area stations and planets.” Raagard defined that the “bio-printed” mercenaries — made utilizing a genetic “printer” — could be created in bulk, and are notably straightforward for the Swarm to take over.
As gamers progress by way of every procedurally generated level, they’re confronted by increasingly more examples of alien physique horror. They’re additionally by no means allowed to overlook how simply they may change into a part of the Swarm, particularly in ranges the place the natural spider web-shaped traps seize them and try to assimilate them if their allies can’t rescue them in time. One notably sensible twist is that missions could be profitable if even one individual survives, and the display lingers on these left behind because the Swarm devours and assimilates them. DarkSwarm is not only a enjoyable alien shooter, however a sinister and chilling physique horror expertise that includes loads of frights and tons of splatter, dismembered limbs, exploding our bodies, and extra.
