Dark Future, the cult Games Workshop board game of clashing highway warriors, set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that was once America, is getting a reboot from Auroch Digital.
Auroch are known for their acclaimed version of another Games Workshop classic, Chainsaw Warrior, as well as for GameTheNews, an initiative that blurred the lines between reality and gaming, and included titles such as NarcoGuerra.
Dark Future: Blood Red States is supported by the Wellcome Trust, and will be a turn-based strategy game, played out in simultaneous real-time action. The gameplay is a furious mix of hammering chain-guns, tactical high-speed manoeuvres and the ripping of metal as vehicles smash into one another. All the action is conducted against a dark background of the decline of humanity; too wild to be true and too close for comfort.
Dark Future was originally released as a board game in 1988, and later expanded into a series of books. The world it inhabits is a very different reality; cyberpunk more weird than wired.
It's an alternative, bleak, hollowed out America, in 2023. The major cities are either corporate controlled high-tech gated communities (Patrolled Zones, or PZs) for those who can pay, or lawless shanty towns for those who can't (NoGos). Between these is 'The Big Empty', the polluted, wasted Red States of America where vicious gangs hunt and fight. The atrophied state has all but given up trying to impose law and order here and instead relies on a new breed of bounty hunter come highway warrior to keep the roads open, the Sanctioned Operative.
Into this fractured new world the player must make their fortune. The player runs a Sanctioned Ops agency; taking on missions for bounty outside the PZs. As well as the tactical action on the road, the player must also manage both the vehicles and drivers – from upgrades to the front-mounted HMGs to booking a driver into the clinic for a new set of bionic eyes.
