Core Decay - an old-school atmospheric immersive sim inspired by Deus Ex

[Spacer's Nugget]

According to Ivar Hill, he and his team went back to pre-production to flesh out the game and to turn Core Decay from a retro shooter with immersive sim elements into a fully realized Immersive Sim™. Core Decay now features: hub spaces populated by neutral NPCs, a branching dialogue system (and voiced characters), stealth mechanics, flushable toilets, among other things.

Core Decay is being developed by Ivar Hill (who used to be the sole developer) and a dedicated team in ALL CAPS, a game studio recently acquired by Slipgate Ironworks (3D Realms).

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it looks like he listened to me.

 

[Tavar]

So, it's not dead (yet). Color me suprised. That said, I don't think it is a great idea to increase the scope when you couldn't deliver the simpler version of the game.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, going from "I am making a new System Shock" to "I am making a new Deus Ex" is making this more vaporware than ever.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

Here's the whole interview on YouTube:

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

Ripping off Adam Jensen arms down to the golden details:

Good thing Embracer owns both 3D Realms/Slipgate Ironworks and the Deus Ex IP.

 

[Ash]

Good luck devs.

 

[randir14]

 

[Jinn]

Looking fantastic.

It's never coming out, is it?

 

[Ivan]

Looking fantastic.

It's never coming out, is it?

stay alive brother. one day!

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

I'm the lead developer of the game - been lurking on these forums for a while, but noticing this thread got me to finally make an account

Just a small point of clarification, it's coming to PC and mobile simultaneously. I wrote a bit on my reasons for also releasing a mobile port in an interview here: https://medium.com/@barrettbearbaker/core-decay-26844eb0731d

And OP is indeed correct, it's attempting to be a middle ground between classic Doom/Quake-style shooters and immersive sims such as Deus Ex/System shock, somewhat more towards the former (if nothing else for reasons of resources and budget). Do feel free to give feedback on what's been shown so far, I think this community often has really good insights and would love to take any opinions into consideration.

Can your game be as far away as possible from Doom 2016? If so I'll buy it.

 

[Infinitron]

Judging by the trailer, it seems like this game has gone more towards the Deus Ex side of things since 2020. I have renamed the thread appropriately.

 

[soulburner]

Looks very promising, but...

Give me the option to enable filtered textures. I remember buying my first 3D accelerator card because aside from a performance increase I wanted to get rid of the pixelated mess in 3D games.
Pixels are ugly.
Pixels are not retro.

 

[Jaedar]

Looks pretty cool, but the dialogue path either did not translate well to 10s video or is severely undercooked.

 

[Jaesun]

Just watched the trailer, I like what I have seen so far. Looks fun to me and like Deus Ex. Added to my wishlist.

 

[Spukrian]

Looks very interesting!

 

[toro]

This has potential. Big potential.

Follow the trails of a mysterious organization across a dying Earth, in an atmospheric singleplayer adventure spanning seven locations across six continents

I'm in. They can copy everything from Deus Ex.

 

[Roguey]

The original pitch was 11 levels so it's good to see he's at least downscoping in some areas.

 

[Gargaune]

Interesting, this looks good. I've been whining for ages that I want a new Deus Ex that isn't Deus Ex. I'm with soulburner on the visuals, though, I wish more developers would dump the faux-retro fad and just do what RatTower's doing with Monomyth. The only appealing "retro" style I remember's in the System Shock remake, and that one went light on the pixelisation.

 

[v1c70r14]

I'm not saying this to be contrarian but I think it looks pretty meh. There's nothing quite as bad as a game whose entire existence is to be a homage. I like Deus Ex, no, I love Deus Ex, I'd probably kill for Charles Manson Deus Ex if it was a person to protect that smile. I know many users here have a deep sense of nostalgia for it and want to re-live those times, and since the game is so good you also want more of it. Perhaps you were even so thirsty for it that you played The Nameless Mod when it came out.

You can't reproduce the magic that Ion Storm captured in 2000, it doesn't work like that. The developer of this can copy the UI, the movement, design principles, the sound effects like a Unity clone of Silent Hill destined to fail and be forgotten if it is ever finished copies that characteristic item pickup sound, you know the one. He can even mistakenly copy the crappy soundtrack from Human Revolution instead of the orgasmic tracker music of the first game. It's not going to be the same and since it is so derivative it won't be better.

If you're going to borrow this much from a game you better ask yourself the question of what you're going to do better, what you are doing that hasn't been done before, and if you come up blank you might as well pack up and terminate the project.

 

[orcinator]

If you're going to borrow this much from a game you better ask yourself the question of what you're going to do better, what you are doing that hasn't been done before, and if you come up blank you might as well pack up and terminate the project.

This is the problem with the retro shooter trend, most of the games could work as a custom map pack for Doom/Quake and plenty would actually be improved if they stuck with the old weapon/enemy set.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Melan]

More a confirmation of long-held suspicions than anything actually surpriring.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, going from "I am making a new System Shock" to "I am making a new Deus Ex" is making this more vaporware than ever.

Right again.

 

[Hobo Elf]

You don't need a crystal ball to tell that a game announced 3 years ago is probably never coming out. Realms Deep has been a profound disaster. Still waiting on at least half of the games announced in the first one to be released.