With a blend of 3D environments, impressive lighting, volumetric effects, and highly detailed pixel sprites Replaced has seemingly come out of nowhere and become one of our most anticipated games on the horizon. Announced at the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase this 2.5 stylish sci-fi platformer is set in an alternate and dark version of the 1980s.

Check it out.

A Dark Alternative to the ‘80s We Know and Love

Most of us think of the ‘80s as a time of questionable hairstyles, boom boxes, glam rock and the birth of iconic games like Pac-Man and Tetris; a simpler time (albeit with more glitter). But what would the ‘80s have looked like in a past where the Trinity nuclear test in the ‘40s went wrong causing a bomb to explode and result in national devastation? In Replaced you get a glimpse into that world, where “Sweet Dreams” are for the sleeping and you “Stopped Believin’” a long time ago…

Bioengineering is Just the Beginning

Replaced is set almost forty years after the nuclear explosion, in a walled fortress known as Phoenix-City ruled by the corrupt Phoenix Corp, a company founded on ‘matching’ voluntary donors with greedy clients looking to upgrade their body parts. As time went on, they found that voluntary supply was falling behind demand and soon the richest clients could get their hands on anything while citizens started to go missing at an alarming rate…Vocal cords, legs, eyes, livers? No problem for the wealthy.

By the time people realised what was happening it was too late, Phoenix Corp was running the whole country, throwing the leftover and unwilling donors into the ‘Disposal’ areas outside the city walls to live as outlaws (the ones that survived that is). In the early days, the corporation started looking into AI and how this could help run their system more efficiently still…Which is how the first prototypes for R.E.A.C.H, the main AI, were created.

Replaced is due for release in 2022 for Xbox and PC and will be there day one on Xbox Game Pass.