STRONG MUDDY VIOLENCE

What happens when you mix the tech of SnowRunner and Space Marine 2 in a co-op shooter with '80s flavour to spare? Toxic Commando has the answer

- BY JEREMY PEEL

Once the last of the zombies has been dispatched with a habitual blast of our shotgun, the noise of battle gives way to two lingering sounds: the splash of swamp water beneath our feet and the rumbling bass note of a jeep locked into low gear. We pick up our feet, aiming to catch up with the vehicle. But at the same moment, its wheels find purchase in the mud. The man in the driver's seat, Saber Interactive's chief creative officer, Tim Willits, is carried away towards the treeline.

“Tim,” we ask, “where are you headed?” Checking the map, we see that he's making a beeline for approximately nowhere. The Hummer that houses our two other teammates, meanwhile, is en route to the next objective a cultist camp in precisely the opposite direction.

“Oh, you're following me?” Willits replies. “Don't follow me - I'm clueless.” We watch as he vanishes into the distance, and listen to the lapping of murky liquid against our boots. In spite of the phosphorescent red tentacles that tower over the swamps, everything is peaceful. And at least there are no witnesses as our own erstwhile ride, a police car, transformed from gleaming white to dark brown by the surrounding sludge and zombie blood, finally slips into the mire and is lost forever. With a little luck, by the time we catch up with our comrades they'll have forgotten to ask where we parked it.

Sludge is a central feature of John Carpenter's Toxic Commando. Set less than ten years in the future, the forthcoming coop FPS from Saber Interactive is focused on a technology company called Obsidian (no relation to the California-based purveyor of RPGs) which drills into a remote forested region with the goal of harnessing the power of the Earth's core. Reports of demonic shapes behind the eyes of its workers aren't heeded, and on October 29, 2033, the Sludge God reveals itself, promptly transforming the local human population into an army of mind-controlled undead.