Hellraid Shifts Focus to Next-gen

Techland's first-person co-op slasher is now set to be released on next-generation consoles and PC.

Dead Island developer Techland announced today that its first-person co-op slasher Hellraid will release for next-generation consoles and PC. The game was previously expected to launch in 2014 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, but it will now be available in 2015 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Techland producer Marcin Kruczkiewicz said that the studio was considering support for both generations of consoles, but doing that would stretch the team too thin.

"We decided to move on to new consoles because of the possibilities that they provide. In general, this is the overall quality of graphics, which is significant boost for our game," Kruczkiewicz said. "Moreover, while developing the game...when we run our builds on the previous generation of consoles, it just looks far worse than we would like. So the new generation of consoles, the power is a bit bigger than the average PC. So it doesn't limit us at all."

Kruczkiewicz said that high-resolution textures, better special effects, and more sophisticated rendering thanks to the power of the Xbox One and PS4. "Everything is possible." When asked if the game would run in 1080p on Xbox One and PS4, he answered "It's too early to say."

"There are games that provide bigger worlds. There are games that provide better storytelling. There are games which provide more enemies and characters. But I'm pretty sure that the combat [in Hellraid] will be outstanding and better than any other game," he said.

Hellraid will be available to players via Steam Early Access this fall.

"The ability to receive feedback before the final product goes onto market is a very tempting idea. It might be dangerous in some cases, like when the product is total crap or when we are not honest and we are not transparent enough that the people will kill us. But we are trying hard to reach [player] expectations."