‘STRAFE’ Wants to Be the Best Goddamn Shooting Game… Of 1996

"People want blood. They want tight action. They want speed that makes their face melt off, so they can scoop up the soupy remains and toss it in the air like confetti."

So says Thom Glunt, director of STRAFE, a new shooter coming to PC and Mac in 2017 that, actually, looks more like an old shooter. Its gory retro thrills have been glooping around the internet for a while, but STRAFE's now been signed up by stateside indie publisher Devolver Digital, home to Hotline Miami, Broforce and Shadow Warrior, turning it from a curio worth keeping half an eye on to a game that'll probably need to be in your life. Probably. Assuming you like exploding what seem to be monsters made in Minecraft into itty, bitty chunks of pixelated flesh and bone. And, come on, who doesn't?

STRAFE is the work of the small team at Los Angeles' Pixel Titans, and alongside guaranteeing hyper-speed shooter kicks that you might've got two decades ago charging through DOOM, the game's got a few newer tricks up its blocky sleeves. Firstly, levels are randomly generated. Of course they are. This is 2016. Secondly, these environments get permanently bloodstained. Because you need to see the evidence of your murder spree from as many angles as possible. It's Splatoon! With the intestines of gremlin-things!

And thirdly, it may or may not support the Oculus Rift. Honestly, given the tongue-through-cheek tone of the game's most recent press release, that feature might be a piss take. But looking at it, it'd work. I mean, it'd be unrelentingly terrifying. But it'd work.

STRAFE will be out in early 2017. Here's a trailer. Watch it, feel light in the head for a few seconds, then get back to your day.

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