After the success of space horror Mouthwashing, Swedish developer Wrong Organ has created a Battlefield-inspired co-op with a supernatural twist<\/p>\n
\u2018Claustrophobic\u201d, \u201coppressive\u201d, \u201cpretty depressing\u201d \u2013 these are the words Jeffrey Tomec and Dave van Egdom volunteer when I ask them to reflect on their work as part of Swedish indie developer Wrong Organ. I\u2019d add \u201cnightmare-inducing\u201d, too. Their last game, Mouthwashing, was an acclaimed work of horror storytelling set on a scuttled space freighter, in which players uncover the horrible things its desperate crew have done to each other.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re planning a follow-up to something so pitilessly nasty, how do you raise the stakes? Well, you could set the entire game in the stifling crew compartment of a heavily armoured tank, a coffin-like interior you share with two other players as you co-operatively attempt to pilot your beleaguered war machine to safety through the crumbling remains of a city in enemy territory.<\/p>\n
While there\u2019s undoubtedly tonal overlap, the roaring engine powering Carcass Clad is gameplay rather than scriptwriting. \u201cIn Mouthwashing, every single thing we were doing was about trying to make that script come to life in any way possible,\u201d says Tomec, the gameplay lead. \u201cEvery gameplay sequence, everything you do at every point is just there to make that story hit. And Carcass Clad is fundamentally not that kind of game. This is a gameplay-driven experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
That gameplay is physical, tactile and always high pressure, whether you choose to play as a gunner, driver or commander. \u201cYou\u2019re surrounded by this awesome but scary machinery,\u201d says technical designer and self-described tank nerd Van Egdom. \u201cIt should feel as though you might lose a finger if you put your hand in the wrong place.\u201d And you will put a hand wrong at some point, since each role is designed so that your attention is stretched to breaking point between urgent competing priorities. One crewmate\u2019s foul-up can have cascading effects for the entire crew.<\/p>\n
If all that sounds a bit, well, claustrophobic, oppressive and depressing, it isn\u2019t even the worst part. Your adversaries aren\u2019t run-of-the-mill camo-clad baddies. No \u2013 your lone crew is pursued through Vhorgorod by the last remnants of the broken city\u2019s defenders, the most dogged and fanatical element of the military force once stationed here. It\u2019s a dynamic that was inspired in part by Battlefield V \u2013 specifically one mission that casts you as the crew of a German Tiger tank still defending Cologne in March 1945.<\/p>\n
Vhorgorod\u2019s defenders, the Green Lions, hunt you through wreckage and ruins. Tomec hints that their supernatural dabblings have \u201cunleashed something on the city\u201d, and now strange growths of flesh and gold fester alongside the rubble and debris. If that\u2019s not grisly enough, the Green Lions\u2019 tanks are festooned with divine livestock, living armour that moos and grunts and bleeds as shells fly.<\/p>\n
But for all that horror, Carcass Clad is a co-op game, which means that it is also, on occasion, a bit funny. For all the grimness and tension, players are still going to be laughing when the driver inadvertently slams the Yksi\u00f6 tank into reverse at a critical moment.<\/p>\n
Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re designing a co-op game, you\u2019re trying to take into account the fact that every co-op game is inherently a silly game,\u201d says Tomec. \u201cWe want \u2013 both narratively and at the gameplay level \u2013 the feeling that you\u2019re a team fighting against these very oppressive odds, coming together and still finding revelry and enjoyment in being able to overcome something that is pretty miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n
On some level, that might be the biggest difference between Mouthwashing and Carcass Clad: a belief that in spite of everything, people can hold together, work together and even find something to smile about.<\/p>\n