1UP and other game news sites are spreading the giddy (if slightly uneasy) word about an upcoming game from Eerie Canal. The premise of Dreadline is just as delicious as it is ludicrous: you play as one of four monsters (a mummy, an ominous floating cube, a ghost with a knife and backpack, or a werewolf in pigtails) who travels through time, visiting calamitous events in which many people died. The monters’ goal is to – wait for it – kill as many people as possible before the disaster strikes. If I was cleverer, this is where I would employ a portmanteau of “gruesome” and “awesome”.
In an interview with Colony of Gamers, Eerie Canal dev Bryn Bennett elaborates:
All missions will take place during a calamity, both historic and imagined. (Like, maybe there are a bunch of zombies in a mall, but the monsters want to kill the humans first.) Generally the players will control monsters as they rampage through the level, trying to kill as many humans as possible before the catastrophe hits.
What gives this premise its edge (and what has some people flexing their moral indignation) is the fact that some of the levels are based on real life occurrences. RMS Titanic and Pompeii are the only real events mentioned so far, although Steven Kimura told ThinkProgress “Not the World Trade Center. Please stop asking about that people.”
When asked about where the game sits on the line between humor and horror, Bennett told CoG:
It’s a tough line. You play a group of monsters who are doing terrible things, but we also want the players to be able to relate to them. There will definitely be a lot of dark humor in this game. If not, it’s kind of psychopathic!
Dreadline is slated for a Q1 2013 release, and will be available on PC only (no indication if that means Windows, OS X or both). You can follow Dreadline’s progress on the Eerie Canal Facebook page or Twitter account.
