Liquid Swords, a nascent game studio headed by Christofer Sundberg, the founder of Avalanche Studios, recently posted a short teaser trailer for their new game with the working title of “Game 1.” The studio was founded in 2020 after Sunderson sold Avalanche Studios to Nordisk Film in 2017, and is based in Stockholm, Sweden. This trailer sheds some light on what will likely be the studio’s first-ever game:
Other than a subheader on the studio’s website describing the game as “a narrative-driven, open-world, hardboiled AAA revenge story, built and developed in Unreal Engine 5,” there is very little known about the details of the game. Avalanche Studios produced several open-world titles in the past; such as the Just Cause series, Mad Max, and Rage 2, so it’s possible that some elements of those games’ design could be present in their new project, but that remains to be seen. From the short teaser trailer provided on the 28th and the concept art snippet shown last year (and below), the new project sort of resembles GTA, and its success would be interesting to observe when the game releases into a world where GTA 6 will likely still be sweeping the market.
Although apparently, according to a reply the “outspoken Twitter user” Sunderson made to a user pleading for Liquid Swords’ new game to resemble some of Rockstar’s titles, he said the game will be like “Mad Max …. Payne.” Perhaps that offers some concept for the tone of the project, but it’s unclear if Sunderson is inferring those games’ influence on its gameplay.
As of now, it is unknown what stage of development this first project from Liquid Swords is in. Earlier in February of this year, the studio put out a press release explaining the layoffs they made concerning some of their “talented team members,” but did not declare any setbacks in production. The studio in April then reposted tweet from Sunderson defiantly proclaiming the studio’s determination in moving forward, so it’s unclear how much the layoffs affected them. Hopefully Liquid Swords is able to continue working on “Game 1” and the results are fruitful for players–it would be unfortunate to see another ambitious studio slip through the cracks of the tumultuous games industry.