This is perhaps a pretty deep cut, but there was a game for the Sega CD called Sewer Shark, which had you blasting through sewers at ludicrous speeds to kill mutated rats. It was mostly on-rails, but it had a good sense of momentum and a lot of zany characters that made it interesting throughout its short playtime.
Okay, so Haunted Space doesn’t look much like Sewer Shark at all, but it looks like it could potentially scratch a similar itch — an itch that’s been just sitting there, being all itchy for decades…
Haunted Space actually looks a bit like the space portions of No Man’s Sky, confining you to the cockpit of a spacecraft (which looks to be fully customizable). The visuals are intense, with Lovecraftian monstrosities, creepy derelict space stations, and giant steel dragons. Yeah, it’s bizarre and amazing.
While it’s hard to say how on-rails the Haunted Space experience will be, the game description does mention exploration, so we’ll see how this actually plays out. I do have to say that the visuals are absolutely incredible.
Haunted Space had been in my periphery for the past few months, but the new combat trailer, unveiled at the IGN Expo livestream, has me really, really excited about it.
So where does Sewer Shark fit into all of this? Well, I’ll be honest here: I mostly made the reference because there’s a scene toward the end of the game where you’re overdriving your ship and it’s falling apart as you’re driving it. The Haunted Space combat trailer has a quick shot of the ship’s cockpit on fire, which reminded me of the “ship falling apart” portion of Sewer Shark. I’m maybe the only person in the world who would have made that connection. You can forget that I mentioned it at all…
Anyway, here’s a list of features from a recent press release:
- Traverse multiple unique star systems, each filled with danger and intrigue.
- Play in first-person or third-person perspective as you overcome the challenges of this dangerous backwater of space.
- Overcome the odds in fierce multi-stage boss battles against ancient God-like creatures composed of organic matter and space debris.
- Trade and craft new ships and ship equipment using powerful and customisable ship modification tools – create and buy new weapons, shields, cargo containers, engines and more.
- Stunning ray tracing effects and immersive audio put you in the heart of the action like never before.
- Difficult choices will have to be made when allocating scarce resources and credits to outfit engines, cargo holds and armaments.
The game is coming soon to PS5, Xbox Series S/X, and Steam. You can check out the Haunted Space combat trailer below.
