THE ANACRUSIS
A sci-fi spin on Left 4 Dead, from former Valve and Riot developers
THE ANACRUSIS WILL HAVE ITS STAGES DIVIDED UP INTO EPISODES
What were the keys to Left 4 Dead’s long-lasting success? One was how well it worked as a ‘hangout game’—a way to catch up with friends over an exploded zombie head or two. Another was its immense modding scene, adding huge longevity and variety to an already super replayable experience. And these are the two pillars of spiritual successor The Anacrusis, from former Valve developers, which trades zombies for aliens in a retro sci-fi setting.
“When my co-founder Dr Kimberly Voll and I started talking about this, we were talking about gaming as a social space. And thinking, if you stood back and thought of games that way versus games as an activity, what would you do and how would you approach it?” says Chet Faliszek, who worked at Valve for more than a decade. “I really loved the co-op on Left 4Dead and how people acted together, and we really wanted to capture that and bring that into the modern setting and update a lot of what we learned there and take it to the next place.”
So what does that mean? Not just that zombies are passé now, though The Anacrusis does ditch them in favour of a horde of vaguely xenomorph-like aliens. But it’s the AI behind them Faliszek says is significant. “That’s one of the reasons why, for this game in particular, that Kim is the perfect partner,” he says. Voll has a PhD in AI, and “the very first code” written for TheAnacrusis was how its version of the Left4Dead AI director will work.
Enemies behave in ways guided by what they learned from watching how co-op players act. That also informed the new ‘special infected’ equivalents, like an alien called The Spawner that will continue creating small turret enemies that attack you until The Spawner’s killed. The Flasher mucks with your vision and senses. The Brute is, much like Left4Dead’s Tank, a big bruiser. They don’t sound revolutionary, but the promise is that the AI driver will know when to bring all these baddies to bear to split up a group.
What I’m most interested in are the weapons of TheAnacrusis’ sci-fi setting. In early footage you can see one player throwing a stasis grenade, while another player chucks some sort of black hole bomb that sucks a bunch of aliens into a gravity well. The main gun featured in most of the video looks somewhat like a bland pea shooter (don’t all starting weapons?), but there’s also an arc rifle that sends tendrils of electricity through multiple aliens, so I’m hopeful there’s more fun designs like that planned for the final game. Faliszek says to expect more added to the game over time, too—one of the benefits of sci-fi is that it opens up the possibilities for a whole world of wild and wacky weapon designs.
AI PATHING
As with Left4Dead, TheAnacrusis will have its stages divided up into episodes, and the levels themselves won’t change, though the placement of items and enemies will. Dr Voll designed tools to make it especially easy to populate levels and to automatically determine the AI’s pathing around geometry, something that Faliszek says will be available to modders as well. The game is being designed to be moddable on day one of release, currently scheduled for this autumn.
It’s a crowded genre out there these days—from existing hits like DeepRock Galactic and Vermintide, to other upcoming titles such as Darktide and Back4Blood, TheAnacrusis has a lot to prove if it wants to stand out. But with a unique philosophy and a legendary Valve developer behind it, I’m convinced this is a co-op shooter you need to keep your eye on this year.