Painkiller’s creator is not a fan of its latest co-op reboot: ‘I disagreed with each single factor they’ve achieved in it’

One of many weirder issues to occur in PC gaming this yr was {that a} new Painkiller got here out and just about immediately disappeared. I am conscious PC gaming strikes so quick these days that many video games get washed away with out anyone noticing. However I believed Painkiller would have enough cultural cachet to stay round a bit of bit.

Maybe it is as a result of Anshar’s studios reboot made some main adjustments to Painkiller’s system, transforming Individuals Can Fly’s devoutly singleplayer horde shooter as a Left 4 Lifeless-style cooperative blaster infused with Doom Everlasting-ish motion. The mixture was ambivalently acquired by those that did discover Painkiller’s launch, with the sport receiving a Combined ranking from just below 600 Steam opinions.

The reboot didn’t go down nicely with Painkiller’s creator, Adrian Chmielarz. Chatting with PCGamesN, Chmielarz says he performed Anshar’s reboot in beta. To say he wasn’t impressed is placing it mildly. “I disagreed with each single factor they’ve achieved in it,” he advised the positioning. Oof.

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Chmielarz is aware of Anshar Studios, stating they’re “Nice guys. They do a whole lot of outsourcing work, and now and again they try to make their very own recreation once more, and I recognize that.” Nevertheless, he describes the brand new Painkiller as a “Skinwalker” including “it has the title Painkiller, nevertheless it has nothing to do with Painkiller”.

This is not completely true. Each video games are first-person shooters, and Anshar’s reboot shares the theme of battling hordes of demons within the afterlife. Plus, its weapon roster is taken straight from the 2004 shooter, increasing upon the inventive alt-fires in Individuals Can Fly’s recreation.

That mentioned, it is true that the video games are structurally very totally different, and it is this which Chmielarz has a difficulty with. “I’ll by no means perceive why you take the IP after which type of turning it round. What is the level right here? You seize the IP since you consider the IP had one thing, however there isn’t any traces of the DNA of that IP in your recreation. That is bizarre to me.”

As well as, Chmielarz has points with the brand new Painkiller’s tone. “Half of Painkiller was in regards to the environment, and Painkiller was treating himself significantly. You possibly can snigger at that, that is honest. So it wasn’t the perfect, however no less than it gave you the concept the individuals who made it believed in it, believed in that world, and needed you to have extra horror experiences than a foolish recreation that is going to be crammed with one-liners and explosions.”

In the end Chmielarz believes the video games are so totally different that, like Arkane being compelled to name its System Shock successor Prey, Anshar naming its recreation Painkiller harmed the sport’s business possibilities. “In the event that they’d truly known as it one thing else, they might have offered extra copies and the response could be rather more constructive.”

Chmielarz has lengthy since moved on from Painkiller, although a lot of his subsequent video games have featured strands of its design. His present undertaking is Witchfire, the lengthy gestating “RPG shooter” that launched as an Epic unique in 2023 and landed into Steam early entry final yr. Witchfire’s newest replace, The Reckoning, launched final week, although developer The Astronauts rapidly needed to amend it resulting from its new “World Corruption” function unbalancing the expertise a lot that, in line with Chmielarz, it “made the sport swap genres”.