Alien invasion spoof Destroy All Humans is being remade
They're made out of meat
Forming a boundless ouroboros of nostalgia and referential humour, mid 2000s B-movie sandbox shooter Destroy All Humans is getting the remake treatment. For those who missed it the first time, it's roughly Grand Theft Auto wrapped around the aesthetics and tone of Mars Attacks and Invader Zim. Playing as big-headed invader Cryptosporidium, players probe, mind-scan and otherwise explode a bunch of '50s American stereotypes. While the original game was made by the sadly-defunct Pandemic Studios, the remake is being handled by Black Forest Games. Below, a debut trailer with a similarly dated Rammstein song.
The original Destroy All Humans was one of a wave of Grand Theft Auto-alikes that wanted to give the player a more overt power fantasy instead of running from the cops . Destroy All Humans was a little less wantonly destructive than Pandemic's Mercenaries games, but a lot less desaturated. The original was decent, but with some wonky mission design (stealth in GTA-ish stuff is never good), so I'm hoping that this is a pretty comprehensive remake. Probably the best thing about it was protagonist Crypto (for short), equal parts deadpan, bemused, snarling and sarcastic. He'd be horribly misanthropic if he were human, but it works because he's a tiny alien bastard.
Tapping Black Forest Games is an interesting choice. They've done retro remakes and revivals before, but they've been a mixed bag. On the plus side, they did the pretty neat Giana Sisters reboot. They're also the monsters responsible for the Bubsy revival, and despite not listing it on their website, they can't escape the fact that they made Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back. Most recently they produced mediocre winter survival sim (with Lovecraftian horror bits) Fade To Silence, which launched out of early access barely a month ago to little fanfare. Fingers crossed that this one turns out better.
There's no hard release date for Destroy All Humans, but Black Forest and publisher THQ Nordic are aiming for a 2020 release. Keep watching the skies (and RPS) for more details. You can see more screenshots on its Steam store page here.