A new 2D shooter is aiming to recapture the spirit of gaming's "golden age", and it's been created by Hasraf 'HaZ' Dulull, a film, TV and game cinematics director who has worked on movie projects like Prince of Persia, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Dark Knight.
Dulull's Beyond the Pixels studio has just launched a demo for Astro Burn, "a fur-filled-frantic shooter" which is coming to PC, smartphones and consoles next year.
"Astro Burn certainly ticks all the boxes," reads the game's press release. "With no time for exposition, gamers find themselves blasting into the dark recesses of the cosmos, assuming the role of Astro, a fearless feline space pilot returning from a deep-space mission with her robot companion AL, only to find Earth encircled by towering A.I. war machines… and not a single human in sight."
Dulull – whose credits also include Fortnite and Dune: Awakening – describes himself as a lifelong retro gamer, and says Astro Burn is designed to evoke the feel of a classic '80s or '90s video game:
"I want players to walk away from my games with a sense of fun and wonder, the same feeling I had as a teenager spending hours at the arcades. These days, so many games demand 60+ hours of commitment or lock you into subscriptions, but back then it was simple—you could just pick up a game, play, and have fun without it being so time-consuming or overwhelming."
Astro Burn boasts 16-bit-style visuals, roguelite gameplay and a two-player co-op mode, all packaged up with accessible one-button gameplay and a "stack-em-up" weapons system. It's also going to be supported by its own animated series, apparently, and a physical release is anticipated, according to Dulull.
"I’m developing Astro Burn to bring back the spirit of gaming’s golden age, and it’s also why I’m planning to release physical editions of our titles—because there’s something special about holding a game in your hands, just like the old days."
You can check out the demo on Steam now.