Curve Studios’ brilliant indie stealth-‘em-up is heading to Steam next month. Stealth Bastard Deluxe’ story began last year. Wanting to take a razor to the unnecessary complications of the modern stealth genre, design director Jonathan Biddle used his spare time to create the grin-inducing Stealth Bastard – a fast-paced sneaking game in which players must escape a facility full of fiendishly gory insta-death traps.
The initial idea blossomed into a tightly-crafted action platformer, which was released for free via the firm’s website almost 12 months ago. To date, over 125,000 players have downloaded the game.
Stealth Bastard Deluxe keeps the essence of Stealth Bastard – which has been described as a cross between Metal Gear Solid and Super Meat Boy – but builds upon it in almost every way.
Players must journey to the exit of each level by employing a mix of platforming, puzzle solving, hacking and stealth. Vicious robot drones are on constant patrol, poised to shoot on-sight. Security cameras perform constant sweeps, ready to execute anyone who falls within their field of vision. And fiendish traps lurk in every shadow, eager to lure careless agents into their clutches.
One false move and – zzzzk!, frrrrap! or gnnnnnnnnr! And sometimes spppppplrrrt!
The main game now boasts a brilliant new narrative which reveals the origin of the character, and why he’s trying to escape such a bastard-tough facility. With 80 levels spread across eight worlds, there’s even more hard-as-nails challenge – featuring all-new equipment, and lots and lots of new ways to die.
Stealth Bastard Deluxe will also come complete with an intuitive level editor, allowing players to become the titular bastard themselves. Levels can be shared and ranked by the Stealth Bastard community, with a comprehensive online leaderboard tracking and ranking progress – enabling players to boast when they are better bastards than their friends.
“We were amazed at the success of the original Stealth Bastard,” says Jonathan Biddle, design director, Curve Studios. “What was originally just an exercise in trimming the fat off existing stealth mechanics has grown into a phenomenal cult hit.
“The free version of Stealth Bastard, was only ever a sketch; an incomplete vision of what we really wanted to do. With the new release on Steam, we’ve now been given the opportunity to build on the original’s foundations, and broaden the gameplay experience in every area. I can’t wait to plaster brand new grins across the faces of existing Stealth Bastard fans, as well as new ones.”
Stealth Bastard Deluxe will be available next month, exclusively on Steam. The free version will remain available on stealthbastard.com, but will no longer be updated. It is actually free, rather than “free to play”, which very often ends up not being.
Features:
- All new equipment which we’ll be revealing soon!
- Hide in the shadows with a real-time shadowing system!
- Evade a wide range of eagle-eyed lethal robotic foes!
- Hack your way to the exit… and to the next challenge!
- Squeeze through doorways mere seconds before you’re sliced into pieces!
- Die in a variety of gruesome, cruel ways!
- Create your own fiendish deathrooms and share them with the world – all in the game!
- Shave seconds off your playtimes and rule the global leaderboards!
