After nearly fifteen years, Gungrave is still slated to get its next installment, Gungrave G.O.R.E. in December of this year. With details surrounding the latest title being rather sparse, we finally get a firsthand look at what it will look like thanks to some new in-game screenshots.
When Red Entertainment set out to create Gungrave it enlisted the help of Yasuhiro Nightow, the creator behind Trigun, as well as Kōsuke Fujishima of Oh My Goddess! fame to give the game a truly unique look. This paid off for the developer: though the game received mixed reviews upon its release on the PlayStation 2 in July of 2002, it garnered high praise from those same critics for its unique art style. Red Entertainment would then hand the development of the franchise over to Ikusabune Co., Ltd. who would then go on to create Gungrave: Overdose in March of 2004. While both the combat and art style of the original game were preserved, Overdose introduced a few new characters to the series. It received mixed reviews from critics, but IGN praised it for increasing the playtime over its predecessor. Now, after a bit of slowdown in news related to Gungrave G.O.R.E., we finally get a sneak peek at what it might look like.
RELATED: New MediEvil Screenshots Display Sir Daniel Fortesque's Beautiful Undead Face
While Gungrave may not have become a worldwide success like many other titles, it provided a unique and interesting perspective on third-person shooters. If the next title can capture the interest of consumers at large it could lead to other game publishers trying their hand at creating similar titles.
The recent news related to Gungrave G.O.R.E. comes from Gematsu who shares multiple screenshots of one of the game's primary locations called "Scumland". They go on to give a detailed description of the location's background stating that it's a mysterious island which randomly appeared out of the water, causing many individuals to travel to it and claim parts of it for themselves. Additionally, its appearance caused a mafia organization known as Raven Clan to inhabit it with the expressed purpose of overseeing the production of a drug called SEED. Within the screenshots, we see a dystopian landscape filled with high-rise buildings and complex machinery. Gungrave G.O.R.E. is slated for release on the PlayStation 4 in December of this year.
Though it took a while for these new details to arise, the level of detail within the screenshots seems to indicate that the game's designers went to painstaking lengths to create a truly unique landscape. The fact that the story revolves around the presence of a drug that plunges society into ruin is also a very relevant topic in today's world and could cause a great amount of interest in the game.
Many may feel that the series took way too long to release another title, but it's understandable given that the last few games in the franchise didn't sell particularly well. If the next installment does well commercially, it might start a new era whereby we see more games within the franchise come out at a much faster rate.