A co-founder of Irrational Games, and BioShock’s development director, is behind Void Bastards, a strategy shooter coming to Xbox One and Windows PC in 2019.
Void Bastards has an excellent name, and you can say it without your Mom smacking you because, hey Mom, that’s its name, right?* Beyond that, though, what is this game about?
It’s about 12 to 15 hours for starters. Void Bastards is designed by Blue Manchu and Jonathan Chey, a co-founder of Irrational Games who directed System Shock 2 and BioShock. The game is a strategy shooter, and the cel-shaded, comic-booky design comports well with the mischievous tone of the story.
In Void Bastards, players are basically boarding and raiding space ships using a variety of “misfit prisoners” for the jobs, all of them having specialities that are either right or wrong for the job. Blue Manchu positions the game as a strategy shooter. Players will have to assign tasks to their motley crew and be prepared to flee, fight, or be a bastard and jettison an enemy into space.
Yesterday Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program announced it will make a same-day launch on Xbox Game Pass in the coming year. Void Bastards is published by Humble Bundle and will also launch on Steam when it arrives.
*—This reminds me, in 1993 I was an intern at The Fayetteville (N. C.) Observer (then the Observer-Times) and the Butthole Surfers came to town to play a show. Our entertainment section, on orders from the publisher, had to refer to them as “The Surfers” in the concert review.
