June 24, 2019 by Paul Curtin
We got a chance to sit down with the developers of THQ Nordic’s Destroy All Humans! remake at this year’s E3, and while not blown away, we were certainly impressed with how good the 14-year-old game now looks.
Next year’s Destroy All Humans! is almost a completely new game where the developers have remade everything from scratch and only re-used the voice-acting and music from 2005’s original game.
For those who haven’t played the first game, the premise is simple (as the title hints): You’ll play as Cryptosporidium 137 aka Crypto. Your mission? Destroy all humans and cause as much destruction as possible.
To aid in your destruction, the developers have improved the combat and shooter mechanics to now allow Crypto to use multiple powers at once. In the game’s tutorial level we were able to use Crypto’s jetpack to fly around the map, pickup cows, and launch them in the air at other cows.
Other small improvements have been made to the movement system that now allow Crypto to use “focus mode” to lock on to enemies and dash to avoid oncoming enemy attacks. And for those old enough to remember, landing in water is no longer results in insta-death and instead just slowly drains Crypto’s shields.
But out of all the differences in the remake, the most impressive is certainly the graphics which do truly look like a modern game using Unreal Engine 4. With the story taking place before any destruction, the thriving ’50s setting gave off a happy vibe that most post-apocalypse games like Fallout fail to capture. But if the actual gameplay can hold up for longer than a couple hours is whole ‘nother question.
With open-world games like Grand Theft Auto still popular and the devs going with a visual style very similar to Fortnite, it’ll be interesting to see if THQ’s remake can keep the interest of a new generation of gamers. The developers explained that part of the reason they’re doing a remake is to test the waters and they’re hoping that the game is a success so that they can work on a brand new sequel next.
Destroy All Humans! Is set for release for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One some time in 2020.
