The Anacrusis’ colorful retro futurism delivers Left 4 Dead play to ‘70s outer space

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Chet Faliszek likes to tell a good story.

You’ve probably experienced some of his work in games like Half-Life 2, Portal, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. But it’s his work on Left 4 Dead and its sequel that solidified his love of storytelling through cooperative gameplay.

In 2019, he co-founded game studio Stray Bombay Company around a desire to inspire people to play together cooperatively. And now, nearly three years later, the studio’s first product – The Anacrusis – is live in Early Access.

There’s a lot of unique aspects to this first Stray Bombay creation. It’s a four-player cooperative shooter which – as with the Left 4 Dead games – relies heavily on an artificial intelligence game director to guide pacing in a way that is responsive to player actions and skills. But this iteration of the director is much smarter, able to look at the big picture when directing action and leading movement.

The Anacrusis – which has a team of four star-tossed, stranded characters fighting to survive their first encounter against aliens on a massive starship – is steeped in a wonderfully kitchy design language. Inspired by the likes of Space 1999, Logan’s Run, and the original Battlestar Galactica, it’s a game flush with a colorful retro futurism.

With the recent release of its third update, we chatted with Faliszek about the birth of the studio, the inspiration and evolution of its first game, and how Unreal Engine helped bring their vision to life.

To read the rest of this story, which first ran on April, 20, 2022, visit Unreal.com.