The Invincible by Lem presents the first video from the game -apkrig

We have repeatedly written on the Vortex about the upcoming Polish play The Invincible based on Stanisław Lem’s novel. Because he definitely deserves the attention of the players. Now, about a year later, a promising and ambitious project is taking its toll again. Studio Starward Industries has released a new trailer that lasts almost two minutes, and promises that the game will be released on PC and new consoles next year. For the first time ever, we can watch the game in motion, which is a kind of patch for the fact that the team did not manage to meet this year’s originally intended date. Last month, 100 years have passed since the birth of Stanisław Lem.

We will soon find out that some places like this are better not to visit at all. But it will be too late for that. Mankind is constantly stubbornly going to places for which it is not yet ready.

An atmospheric teaser entices us on a visually imaginative trip to the planet Regis III. This is a first person retro sci-fi thriller inspired by the story of the same name, which was published in Czech under the title Invincible. In the game we wake up in a hostile world and we have to find the missing crew members. But that is not our only task. We must survive while revealing the shocking secrets of this planet. It is said that we will soon find out that some places like this are better not to visit at all. But it will be too late for that. Mankind is constantly stubbornly going to places for which it is not yet ready.

The planet Regis III is located in the constellation Lyra and the main heroine is Dr. Jasna. She is an experienced scientist, but she wakes up with a partial loss of memory and everything is blurred. All she knows is that she didn’t come here alone, the whole crew was with her. So you should probably start with it. In the end, however, we will not only communicate with people, but also with machines that can help us in our mission.

The local world influenced by atompunk is to be based on advanced but analog technology, which has both a futuristic and, in a way, obsolete impression. The authors promise a non-linear story that should branch out based on our relationships and decisions. The game is powered by Unreal Engine and its authors from the Starward Industries studio used to work on AAA titles in the CD Project, Bloober Team or Techland. The team is based in Krakow, was founded in 2018 and today has approximately twenty employees.

As we wrote before, the very first play based on the work of the world-famous Polish writer Stanisław Lem, who was made famous, among others, by the novel Solaris, is supposed to be true to the legacy of the original, although it clearly deviates from it. The title should also be scientifically meaningful. The developers do not want to betray the legacy of the writer, who was very critical of the adaptations of his stories, so no magical elements should appear in the script. Moreover, according to the authors, Stanisław Lem has never entered a fully digital world, so his stories, and therefore his future play, will be defined by so-called analog retrofuturism.

In this world, people are penetrating space, but they don’t know mobile phones, for example.

It will not only be about the science fiction aesthetics of the 50’s and 60’s, but also about the functioning of the title itself, its world and, after all, the gameplay. We can look forward to large mainframe computers, punched labels and oscilloscopes instead of modern flat touch screens. In this world, people are penetrating space, but they don’t know mobile phones, for example. According to them, the developers therefore pay great attention to the design of all devices, their operation and use. We can forget about modern interactive user interfaces or virtual plans.

According to the authors, this is a significant challenge, because for example, feedback for a player who controls a mechanism is much more complicated when you can not rely on a modern display or screen displaying all kinds of data and information. Otherwise, however, the developers praise the template very much. According to them, Lema’s work is an ideal material for a video game. He believes that the Invincible is relatively straightforward by his conditions, and therefore he is well suited for adaptation.

It would be a shame to ruin this

But the graphics were also influenced by artists and designers such as Chris Foss, Chesley Bonestell and Syd Mead. The developers also relied on the Cold War suits, ships, and tools that emerged in the Soviet Union. As you can probably imagine, the project fascinated me from the first moment, when the developers still talked about it only in hints, it was not quite clear what work they were inspired by and did not show us anything directly from the game. But with each new screenshot, I get more and more under my skin.

You can find more details about The Invincible and its authors in our older articles, and I highly recommend that you also follow the news on Steam. Be sure to check out the game’s official website as well, where you’ll find more details, and it’s just as attractive to look at as the game itself. You can also visit the website of the studio itself.