Violence on two wheels, that was Road Rash. A motorbike racing game where you were able to attack your opponents with chains and bats, it wasn’t like many other games out in the 90s, nor, thinking about it, many games since. This is where DarkSeas Games comes in, they’re not affiliated with the original Road Rash but they’re a group of fans who want to develop the modern sequel it never had.
I’m not entirely sure what “realtime footage” means, whether it is unfettered in-game footage or a scripted sequence that is running live within the engine. That it’s not pre-rendered is likely all we can take away from it. That aside, while looking quite rough around the edges art assets-wise, the short bit of the game in action does capture the pragmatic violence of road rash, none of that fancy fist work when a quick boot to the bike will send your foe careering into the front of an articulated lorry.
While the concept of the game is definitely one that stands up more than a decade on from the last Road Rash game I’d really like to see more of the game in action before recommending backing it. It’s worth noting that this isn’t the team that designed or worked on the Road Rash series. DarkSeas Games is untested and, while they say things like “Publishers would never let us make a game like this”, I can’t see why that would be the case: it’s not like a violent racing game is a controversial topic anymore.
It may be worth waiting on more Kickstarter updates before pledging, see what more we can learn about the proposed game and find out just how far along it is.
You can read more about the project over here.