Wistful thinking

As if a cover inspired by vintage comics wasn’t enough, there’s a powerfully nostalgic feel to this issue’s Hype selection, too. Dave Gilbert’s new point-and-click adventure Old Skies actually originated as a warning against spending too much time wallowing in the past – until the pandemic hit and all he wanted was to seek comfort in the familiar. Wadjet Eye’s latest, then, has been repurposed as a dark comedy which centres on the concept of time-travel tourism. Protagonist Fia, an agent of the corporation organising these trips, accompanies customers on their temporal holidays to make sure nothing goes horribly wrong. (Evidently, she’d make a pretty good videogame producer.)

Joel McDonald’s Hindsight, meanwhile, underlines the truism that the past is a foreign country: though it’s not so much that they do things differently here as 47-year-old Mary having the life experience to recontextualise events from her childhood. And talking of fresh contexts for old memories, the horror-tinged Echostasis employs fuzzy, PS1-style visuals and CRT displays to present an intoxicating vision of the future: as we explore these haunted dreamscapes multiple times to unlock fresh shortcuts, we’re reminded of what happens to those who cannot remember the past.

Which brings us to Wanted: Dead, and an illuminating chat with 110 Industries’ founder Sergei Kolobashkin, a charismatic creator who quit the energy industry to make videogames – and who is evidently keen to return to an era when games took more chances. That in itself is a risk, of course. His hope is that this gory actioner casts players back to 2004 – the era of Tomonobu Itagaki’s Ninja Gaiden reboot and Michigan:

Report To Hell. If developer Soleil isn’t careful, however, its time-travel journey might only make it as far back as 2015, and Itagaki’s dysfunctional Devil’s Third. Perhaps Fia should come along to ensure things go smoothly.