Hero image: Volatiles. Image: Team Instant Defeat / 11 bit studios
Team Instant Defeat And 11 Bit Studios Reveal A Tile-Building Action Roguelike
Volatiles is a top-down action roguelike in which players build the arena they fight in. It was announced with a trailer that debuted during the Triple-i Initiative, according to its Steam announcement, posted at 3:11am AEDT on Friday 9 October.
The game is made by Team Instant Defeat and published by 11 bit studios. Xbox’s trailer description calls Instant Defeat an “indie studio”, and the team’s dev diary says Volatiles is the work of a three-person team.
Every run starts from a single tile. The dev diary says “As you progress, you will place new pieces of the arena and decide how the space around you develops.”
The team describes the loop as one that feeds itself: “The battlefield you create affects your build, and your build affects the battlefield.”
Players can keep the arena open for room to move, or build narrow paths that force enemies into tighter spaces. The diary says there is no single correct way to lay it out.
The game is set in what the studio calls “an analogue sci-fi Cold War world”. The player wakes in a hidden lab with no clear memory of how they got there, and something called the Mold is buried in their mind.
After a failed run, the player wakes in a water-filled tank with new knowledge for the next one. The team names the works of David Lynch, games from Remedy Entertainment and Half-Life among its influences.
The Steam page lists the release date as “Coming soon” and gives no price. It shows Volatiles as single-player with full controller support, in seven languages including English, French, German and Simplified Chinese.
The studio asks players to add the game to their Steam wishlist and follow its dev diaries. Neither post names a platform, and Steam is the only store page found. The same trailer was also uploaded to the Xbox YouTube channel.
Source: Volatiles (Steam) – Announcement Trailer, Volatiles (Steam) – What Exactly Is Volatiles?, Steam – Volatiles, Xbox (YouTube) – Volatiles | Announcement Trailer