Last fall, French indie developer Alexandre Spindler posted a video of a “bodycam style” FPS. twitter (opens in new tab)The eerie photorealistic footage has been retweeted over 35,000 times. Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp was among those who were impressed with the clip.
Spindler properly announced the game today. It’s called Unrecord, and it’s a “tactical shooter” with “complicated dialogue, innovative gameplay mechanics, tough moral dilemmas, and a unique shooting system.” steam page (opens in new tab)There’s a new trailer embedded above.
A little surprising to me, the emphasis is on storytelling above all else. “Players will have to investigate several criminal cases and confront a variety of characters,” he reads from Unrecord’s official description. “The game’s plot and presentation are central to the gameplay experience, allowing players to anticipate a variety of gameplay his sequences and numerous twists.” ‘ is similar to.
Of course, the most striking and irritating thing about Unrecord is the almost photorealistic body camera look. This is a look commonly associated with military and tactical police operations, but also with evidence of military and police brutality and killings in recent years in particular.Unrecord’s protagonists are police officers.
Contributing to the impression that we’re looking at real body cam footage is the ability of the player character to achieve, according to the developers, a “unique aiming system” that allows for “free hand movement” Free hand movement. Video effects such as lens distortion, interlacing, blooming, and pixelated faces (as if the footage had been censored) also contribute to the illusion, and the raw fidelity of the environment underpins the whole. Still, the developers say Unrecord isn’t meant for realistic simulations.
“Unrecord is a narrative game inspired by real FPS games,” reads the game’s FAQ. Official site (opens in new tab)“It’s a blend of Firewatch and Ready Or Not. Unrecord isn’t a simulation game because realism isn’t an obsession, it’s an integral part of the universe.”
Between the reference to recording a video in the title, or perhaps erasing it, and the comment that “the presentation becomes the center of the whole experience”, if you haven’t heard the whole premise of Unrecord’s story. I have reason to believe. not yet.
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Studio Drama, which Spindler founded with musician Theo Hiribarne in 2020, only makes a few other comments about Unrecord’s graphics, such as how to adjust camera movements and motion sickness effects for players. pointing out what is being done.
On its Steam page, the studio states that the body camera perspective is intended to give a “trompe l’oeil experience”. techniques used by painters (opens in new tab) Creates the illusion that 2D images have real depth. I’m not sure if the studio drama meant that his Unrecord space was somehow fantastical, or if it was just the idea that video-like effects create the illusion of real footage.
In addition to the trailer at the beginning of this article, Studio Drama released a series of screenshots. You can see this in the slideshow above. Unrecord doesn’t have a release date yet.
