Sinking a finger into the soft, moist, flesh of Cruelty Squad is exhilarating…but curious. Not curious as in the first time you try new food, but more like when you recognized picking your nose as a kid was cool, but also wrong. The deeper you dig, the softer, more tender, it gets. Surrounding, encasing, entombing the probing tool of choice.
Finding itself somewhere between the dark recesses of the human mind and when the 90s figured out graphic design, Cruelty Squad is a fiendishly clever shooter. Gestating in Steam’s Early Access program, the bizarre shooter holds a basic outline that slithers around variables, crafting a different experience to what may be assumed.
Each level of the game is a simple set-up for killing targets and escaping. The twist comes in the shape of different ways to approach the targets. Experimentation is a core focus that goes beyond differing weapons and routes. It’s much more subtle, perhaps even insidious, invitations to try the impossible that open Cruelty Squad’s maps up. While not exclusively mechanics driven, uncovering those seedy little corners revealing a new path or two props up the core concepts.
Firing a volley of bullets into rough accumulations of humans, searching for the target, is the primary motive. Movement is swift, almost erratic, but in a way that feels intentional. Combat is firstly gun focused, secondly, everything is a weapon. Limbs (not always your own), bins, cars, and anything not nailed down. In a world, so oddly portrayed, it’s easy to get lost in the moment, overlooking Cruelty Squad’s smarter side.
Underneath all of the uncanny visual displays is a perk system that tangible affects how the game is played, as well as how the levels can be broken. Each successful assassination rewards the player with funds. These can be spent on an array of items that hold a number of stats and effects. Increased health, more speed, more armour, the usual culprits. The trick here is Cruelty Squad plays with the concept of pros and cons, not simply giving the players buffs for free.
More health and armour will reduce the player’s speed or ability to jump, denying them access to parts of the map. More mobility results in less health. Mix and match, risk and reward. Whatever you wish to call it, Cruel Squad does it justice. The success of such systems opens the game up even more, birthing theory crafting and speedrunning within its fleshy confines.
The core gameplay mechanics are smart, deserving of credit, but so is the visual style. Tapping into a mixture of body horror, Yahoo Geocities, and what it looks like to see the world through Joe Rogan’s eyes 85% of the time. It’s unsettling, uncanny, unclear yet seemingly aware. Every screen of the game is coated in gross little details, trails scattered about to showcase ammo, armour, and health. It’s ghoulish, but that’s exactly why it works.
The audio design feels like something we shouldn’t be hearing. An unearthed Dark Web evil you’d hear about in some creepy pasta or a low-voice running off on a YouTube video. It whispers, squashes, squeaks, entices, and confuses. Without experiencing it, the concept may sound like an utter mess, but you wouldn’t be wrong. It is a mess, but unashamedly so. Like a blob growing and consuming, gathering in mass. Of course, you add this to the general unease of Cruelty Squad and that bizarre uncanny feeling suddenly becomes much more…focused.
Cruelty Squad is a shooter built on solid mechanics and abstract ideas that swirl in the mouth like an unknown liquid. You feel like you ‘get it’ but you’re never quite so sure. Like anytime David Lynch puts an image to screen, Cruelty Squad almost taunts and suggests, but never fully reveals…which is exactly why it works.
In Early Access, the current offering is a fair deal. Even more so for those who seek to speed run and simply ponder. Embrace the flesh, inject the world, join the cruelty.
