The Indie Informer

Last month, an illuminating article written by Game Informer’s Wesley LeBlanc piqued my interest in a barely announced game planning to reveal more details at this year’s GDC. Almost immediately following this, a report from Bryant Francis at Game Developer described how the announcement came on the heels of layoffs at the game’s developer, ProbablyMonsters.

These turbulent waters, with exciting currents crashing into tempestuous tides, still swirling, I stepped into a room to meet some of the creators behind Nekome: Nazi Hunter.

Game director Jeronimo Barrera is the first to clasp my hand. Energetically personable, Barrera does the lion’s share of the talking during my hands-off preview. He makes an impression, but the developer who jumps onto the sticks, lead game designer Danko Dimoski, though less loquacious, exudes the kind of intensity that speaks to the genuine love he holds for this project. It is his enthusiasm, as much as anything I saw in the “early early pre-Alpha” build, which cemented my interest in the game. His passion reminds me of why I spotlight indie games: For the developers so personally invested in what they’re making.

That said, if I simply go off of what I’ve seen of the game, the project itself is deeply enticing. Nekome is early in production, but it has a very firm sense of identity. It’s a “symphony of violence” conducted by a Romani man named Vano Nastasu, whose life has been razed to the ground — and he is ready to return the favor.

The game is set during World War 2, when the Nazi regime began to brutally attack peoples it wanted to scapegoat. Among the first of these are the Romani, an estimated half a million of whom were killed by the Nazis, and untold more suffered horrific persecution. Vano’s story is not one of geopolitical motivations and strategies of nations. It’s an intensely personal one. A story that stares with hatred deep into the eyes of dying enemies. It won’t have a happy ending, and our protagonist is not a hero; it’s hard to know if he even manages to hold on to his humanity.

To emphasize the thematic destruction of humanity and how hatred affects everything around it, the gameplay is up close and immediate. Vano utilizes a historically inspired martial style called gutter fighting. It’s efficient, direct, and lends itself perfectly to stealthy hand-to-hand combat.

I watch Vano quietly stalk through a corridor and take out several uniformed Nazi grunts. The gameplay reminds me of older Tenchu titles that required me to assess the situation and my enemies before making the best plan of attack. But when I mention Tenchu, Barrera points rather to Sifu’s methodical approach and Dimoski references Shadow of Mordor.

The last example moves me to question if players could storm into a room and expect to come out of the encounter alive. To my surprise, it seems like you can. It would be hard, but you can. The game features three skill branches: stealth, combat, and improvised weapons. Each branch will upgrade as you use its correlated skills. So, whether players prefer running out into the fray or stealthy takedowns, they’ll be rewarded for their unique playstyle.

Vano most often fights with a knife, which makes it easy to get through the level without attracting too much attention. The weapon also bathes him in the violence of his retribution. I commented on this, and the developers were happy to demonstrate why the character holds this preference. He can use guns, but, in keeping with history, they can be a bit of a gamble.

When Vano picks up a dropped gun (in the demo’s case, a sniper rifle), no special UI pops up to communicate how much ammo it has. There is no telling how many shots, if any, players can fire before it becomes a glorified paperweight. And once the rifle becomes useless, everyone in the immediate area has been alerted and is headed Vano’s way.

Luckily, he has a few tricks up his sleeve to deal with the mob. Striking enemies fills up a special bar at the top of the screen. When filled and activated, the gameplay slows, and the player gets the option to select specific body parts on specific enemies to strike with ruthless precision. This move quickly thins the herd and causes some soldiers, typically grunts, to run away in terror. In a game that’s been very grounded so far, something unexpected happens at this moment. Above the fleeing character’s head appears an icon of a chicken – marking them as currently non-combative.

When the demonstration comes to a close, I ponder how many ways there are to kill Nazis in Nekome: Nazi Hunter. The team let me know that a recent mocap session attempted to map around seven hundred moves connected to using different weapons in different scenarios. I hope to see more of them as development continues.