There’s no shortage of Metroidvanias out there, but none of them are set in World War II and pit you against diabolic Nazi experiments. , a surprise new retro-inspired project from Bit Kid, the developer of 2018's . Revealed during the last week, Wolfhound was easy to miss among the hundreds of new game announcements, updates, and trailers, but it immediately caught my eye thanks to the unusual setting and killer style.
You play as Capt. Chuck “Wolfhound” Rossetti, a one-man army tasked with infiltrating a secret Nazi base in the Bermuda Triangle. In classic Metroidvania fashion, there’s plans for a sprawling 2D map, special abilities that unlock new areas, and tons of different guns, from flamethrowers to more experimental weapons.
Here’s the trailer: James Petruzzi, the head of Bit Kid, told me in an interview that he was inspired to make after playing 2017's , a retro run-and-gun where every time you die and come back, you have to kill your old self to continue. He wanted to do something similar set in World War II, partly as an homage to his grandfather, a WWII vet who had recently died. “My grandfather passed during the the making of , and when we went to the funeral afterwards my dad had gotten out all these old photos he took while he was in Europe, and made a big collage out of them,” Petruzzi said.
“And so when was over I was really interested in getting all those photos, scanning them, restoring them, and all that.” On the backs of the photos were .