E3 2019: Devolver Digital’s Nina Struthers returns for company’s first “Devolver Direct”
When other E3 presentations bore you to tears and the hollow platitudes and corporate speak of other game companies pushes your head to the brink of exploding, the delightfully bizarre E3 offerings from game publisher Devolver Digital come to the rescue just in time.
At E3 2019, Devolver did not disappoint. Ripping off the Nintendo Direct format, Devolver also used a RoboCop-inspired story backdrop starring the company’s fictional, fire-eyed Chief Synergy Officer, Nina Struthers (played by actress Mahria Zook). However, Devolver delivered on the game front, too, which is the most important thing, right?
Their first game was Fall Guys Ultimate Knockout, a multiplayer from developer Media Tonic. While there was no actual gameplay shown, what was shown looks like a competitive Lemmings/Pikmin capture-the-flag game with a very colorful finish. Devolver described the game as “super-tits-awesome,” which is – as everyone knows – the best kind of awesome, so that’s some pretty high praise.
Fall Guys is coming to both PS4 and PC in early 2020.
Devolver Bootleg by Doinksoft is perhaps the most oddball announcement of the Devolver presentation, and that’s saying something. Devolver Bootleg is a compilation containing eight original rip-offs of Devolver Digital’s own games. Here’s how the 8 games are described on the Devolver Bootleg Steam page:
- Enter The Gun Dungeon: a dungeon crawler but instead of swords it’s guns. But also everything is made out of guns and bullets and stuff. Like, everything.
- Hotline Milwaukee: Violent stealth action and a whole lot of blood. From your garbage person apartment in historically interesting and relevant Milwaukee, pick up the phone, and answer the call–of murder. Follow instructions and follow the stairs deeper and deeper into the mysterious basement. Where does it go? Who are you?
- Ape Out Jr.: Escape out of ape prison in this classic arcade-style platformer where you play as an orange gorilla who will kill everyone so he can to see his dad again. Grab unsuspecting guards to use as weapons and shields in this completely original idea set to an interpretive chiptune jazz drummer soundtrack. Please, Ape Out was my father’s name.
- Shootyboots: It’s the never-ending story of a young boy falling down a well, wearing a giant boot as if it was overalls, which also is a gun. Collect gems, squash and shoot the fauna, fall deeper into the infinite well, and wear some other equally large and ballistically designed shoes.
- Super Absolver Mini: Turbo Fighting Championship: (2 Players Only) A competitive fighting game where you play as your choice of one of four masked combat disciples. You choose two special moves. You fight two rounds. The winner is absolved of the obligation to ever have to fight again, but probably will anyway because the one true resolve of the flesh is a fist colliding with it.
- Catsylvania: It’s a cat inside of a suit of armor. It’s a cat…In full plate armor. What else do you want?
- PikuBiku Ball Stars: Everybody’s favorite red thing with legs is back and ready to sink some baskets with a friend. Nothing but net baby. Slam freakin’ dunk. (2 Players Only)
- Luftrousers: Hello, I am Rami Ismail, ½ of Dutch independent game development studio, Vlambeer. We made a version of Luftrausers that had a typo, and JW left the thumbdrive containing the source at a coffee shop somewhere while I was doing a talk in Berlin, then Nairobi, then in Los Angeles the following day. If you find the thumbdrive, can you please return it and please PLEASE do not share the contents with anyone or add it to a compilation of pirated, under-the-table ripoffs of games that Devolver has published.
Devolver Bootleg is available now on Steam for $5.
Up next is Carrion a gloriously violent “reverse horror” game in which players take on the role of bloody-red blob straight out of a John Carpenter film. According to Devolver, players will “stalk and consume those that imprisoned you to spread fear and panic throughout the facility. Grow and evolve as you tear down this prison and acquire more and more devastating abilities on the path to retribution.” So there’s a story, but they pretty much had me at the “gloriously violent” part.
Carrion is coming to PC and consoles in 2020.
Next up is Enter the Gungeon: House of the Gundead, an all-new, 2-player arcade light-gun game with some RPG elements developed by Dodge Roll and set in the Gungeon universe. Enter the Gungeon is described as a gunfight dungeon crawler where players shoot, dodge roll, and table-flip their way to the legendary Gungeon’s ultimate treasure: the gun that can kill the past. Along the way, players can collect loot, discover hidden secrets, and purchase items from merchants.
Enter the Gungeon enters arcades and arcade home collections in 2020.
Released in 2018, The Messenger is a 2-D action platformer featuring a time-traveling ninja who at times resembles either Ninja Gaiden‘s Ryu and Mortal Kombat‘s Raiden. Now the action-heavy side-scroller is getting a free DLC upgrade titled Picnic Panic scheduled to release on 11 July for PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
Devolver ended their presentation with one last gameplay video of the stylish, bloody action/platformer My Friend Pedro, which was a highlight of E3 2018. Developed by DeadToast Entertainment, My Friend Pedro is “a violent ballet about friendship, imagination, and one man’s struggle to obliterate anyone in his path at the behest of a sentient banana.”
My Friend Pedro finally arrives on Nintendo Switch and PC on 20 June.
That’s it for Devolver’s “press conference” at E3 2019. You can check a look at the full Devolver Direct E3 2019 video presentation below. Have a favorite of your own? Let us know in the comments!
The Splintering 