ROTWOOD
Developer/publisher Klei Entertainment Format PC Release TBA
Klei is no stranger to side-scrolling hack-and-slash, the Shank beat-’em-ups having been a success for the studio a decade ago. Its return to the genre with Rotwood highlights what has and hasn’t changed about the developer in the meantime. It hasn’t lost the knack for crisp cartoon visuals: Rotwood’s ogres and canine warriors look as though they could have been plucked from the better class of modern children’s television. A brief trailer puts the emphasis on the game’s fourplayer co-op element – inevitable given the success of Don’t Starve Together – before ending on an Early Access date that flutters playfully back and forth between years, surely a wink to the meandering path Griftlands took to its release. And it seems the studio isn’t done changing: having been acquired last year by Tencent, it’s set to try its hand at publishing.