SteamWorld Headhunter has been announced by Image & Form, the latest new and distinctive entry in the long-running SteamWorld franchise. After a decade of 2D games in various different genres, this will be stepping into full 3D, for a third person co-op action adventure.
No platforms or release date targets have been announced.
The game’s rendered teaser certainly retains a lot of the chunk steampunk aesthetic of the series, but fleshes it out into a gorgeous 3D style. The trailer shows two cowboy robots facing off in a dusty town, one seemingly besting the other in a quickdraw shootout…. but has he? Not exactly! Approaching the fallen body, it’s revealed that the robo-corpse is missing a head, which immediately scampers up and leaps at the still-standing cowboy-bot.
This is the “heap-popping” gameplay mechanic that the game’s blurb refers to:
Taking the series in a fresh direction, SteamWorld Headhunter is a stylised and colourful, third-person co-op action adventure with a head-popping twist.
It’s certainly a fresh direction, but this is a franchise that has always sought a new and interesting direction. From its breakout excavation platformer success SteamWorld Dig, Image & Form then went off and made a space-faring turn-based tactical game in SteamWorld Heist. SteamWorld Dig 2 returned to familiar territory, but that was then followed by the deck building RPG SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamesh.
SteamWorld Headhunter will be the next game from the studio following on from Xbox exclusive The Gunk. First announced at the Xbox Series X showcase in July 2020, this will be the studio’s first step into 3D game development and their first non-SteamWorld game at the same time. Set on an alien planet, you adventure to uncover the mystery behind the titular gunk. The game has an intriguing and chunky art style to the technology you carry, letting you peel back the gunk and reveal the beauty of the natural world below. The Gunk will release on 16th December.
Source: press release