Experimental

Unusual first-person action game confuses and amuses.

By Nathan Davis on 2 February, 2009

Zeno Clash is a curiously peculiar game. At the recent Independent Games Festival, it was nominated as a finalist for Excellence in Visual Art, and viewing the currently available media, one can plainly see why. It sets out to be an entertaining single-player experience, all the while maintaining a strong, let’s say unfamiliar, flavour.

Created by independent developer ACE Team Software, Zeno Clash is a first-person shooter action game that focuses heavily on up-close and brutal melee combat alongside extraordinary design. ACE is building the game on the Source engine, and this was clearly a good choice. Offering an intriguing world with exotic twists wherever possible, the diverse range of characters with whom you interact are at least as equally bizarre. The developer’s rather apt description of the design is “beautiful and disturbing at the same time.”

Set in a gritty, twisted world of anarchy and punk fantasy, players assume the role of Ghat. He wishes to escape from his family so as to start an adventure with his female companion, Deadra. Why he must escape is a bit hazy, but we’ll put it down to his mother (and father) being a bird, and I don’t mean the complimentary ‘fit young woman’ variety. This claw-footed being who bore Ghat (and most of those around him) is named Father-Mother and it just so happens to be a hermaphrodite, humanoid, bird beast with lemons for eyes and a voice that makes your spine want to puke.

Somehow, Ghat managed to avoid these features, quite unlike his mutant-spawn siblings, who now have a penchant for destroying every bone in his body. It turns out that you shouldn’t disobey mum-and-dad-in-one.

By focusing on melee combat, the game aims to link the first-person genre with the fighting game genre, so you’ll get to properly smack around opponents with the variety you’ve always wanted. Weapons, aside from fists and knees, are often eccentric in design, consisting of scrap bits and junk you find lying around. You can also collect hammers and clubs to wallop the particularly big guys, and there’s even the promise of skull bombs. Melee isn’t the only option, however, as players can also find ranged weapons. “Weapons need to be reloaded, but we don’t have ammo pickups. It’s a bit unusual, but remember this is not a regular FPS,” writes the developer.

Overall, this title is shaping up to be one of the most unusual we’ve seen. No release date as of yet, but it’ll be heading to Steam when it does hit gold. According to an excellent interview by Rock, Paper, Shotgun, it’s due out in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, here’s a clip to tease the senses (higher quality version here).