Back in 1999, gaming was good. Games that were released late in the original PlayStation generation squeezed the last drop of performance out of the hardware, resulting in impressive visuals and all-time classics whose sequels we still play today. Fast forward 26 years and we’re excited to announce that our sci-fi horror game Derelikt will make you feel like your console shed 5 generations when it launches on PlayStation 5 on November 13.
Derelikt takes place aboard Von Neumann Outpost, grafted onto an anomalous asteroid discovered in Saturn’s orbit. Things are rough. The work is hard, home is a million miles away, and people are stressed out. Plus, a mysterious drone is driving everyone closer to their breaking point…
You arrive as an outside contractor tasked with finding out the fate of Excavation Team Delta, who went missing on the derelict surface. What you discover turns things from bad to worse fast! The halls are dark, the systems are failing, and the survivors that you come across aren’t telling the same story. Nailing that feeling of not being able to trust those around you, while simultaneously coming face to face with truly out-of-this-world horrors, was paramount for us.
The Von Neumann Outpost is well stocked with an arsenal of traditional weapons, and as you progress, you might even find a few more outlandish weapon prototypes and even alien weapons at your disposal. There are also over a dozen to interact with in Derelikt, each featuring their own secrets, and agendas. Some are useful, some are dangerous, some are doomed, and some (let’s be real, most) are all three!
We wanted to not only create this horrifyingly tense world full of scary moments and fast gunplay, but also make sure to make managing resources, exploration, dialogues and old-school puzzle solving a core part of the tension experience.
Derelikt is very much inspired by the PSOne-era of sci-fi horror, and it feels like a full-circle moment to be writing this today. The goal was to make it appear as if we found Derelikt on a CD-R in the dusty, long-abandoned storage unit of a defunct late-90s developer and simply ported it to modern platforms. I’m of the firm opinion that retro doesn’t have to mean crude and primitive, and I set out to create the most faithful homage to 5th generation graphics available on the market.
Our game features 100% lovingly hand-painted textures and vertex colour lighting. Affine Texture warping was deliberately implemented and mitigated in the next step by dynamically subdividing the geometry – just like the most high-end games of the era did – and the game also features retro-style full-motion CGI cutscenes. This way, a delicate balance was achieved – Derelikt looks aesthetically pleasing while still conceivably plausible on period hardware. Our team made a conscious effort to implement modern game design while keeping the core feeling and charm of that era of sci-fi horror intact, including an option for players to toggle on or off effects to match their particular taste.
Derelikt has been in development in some form since late 2021 and has had a turbulent and exciting development journey. We hope the game is as wild a ride for players as it has been to develop!
If you’re a fan of PSOne aesthetics, warping textures, geometry, heavy atmosphere, and a sense of unease, all set in the far reaches of space, then we think that you’ll love Derelikt! We hope that you’ll give it a shot, and you can pre-order the game today for a 10% discount, ahead of release.