The Next World is an open-world, action-adventure cyberpunk RPG set in a dystopian Los Angeles in the year 2108, where you play as Dresden, a systems engineer for the most involved and powerful corporation in the world: The PXL Megacorporation who has become essentially a corporate one-world government.
You find yourself struggling to balance the preservation of your life, your mothers life, the lives of your friends all while having the world crush down on you because you accidentally uncovered a secret so powerful, it could unmake humanity.
Take on jobs, build your reputation among factions and people, unlock cybernetic upgrades, special abilities, weapons, build vehicles and fight through until the very end - with up to 12 unique game endings!
In as few words as possible, the game story was written to line up and echo with real events and scenarios at the worst point in my life: the loss of my mother. Like the main character, she contracted a rare cancer and the hospital and her friends failed to detect it and misdiagnosed her. I moved back from California to Michigan to be next to her side, leaving my family and business behind and nearly losing everything. I am bipolar. Losing my mother forced me into a manic state that seemed to never end. Perpetually feeling alone, destroyed and always waking with a pit in my stomach before reality hit me and told my my endless nightmares really happened.
Each night, I would lay next to my mother in hospice in her living room, couch pulled next to her bed and we'd hold hands and talk for hours in between her naps. However, those soft moments didn't come without extreme mental disruptions for me... Day after day, night after night, psychosis swallowed most of my sanity. I began free-writing (letting my mind go blank and allowing my brain to talk directly to my hand) and what came out was absolutely insane, but it was my reality. Once you play the game, you will instantly recognize and understand those moments in which I was breaking.
The idea of `The Nothing` a virtual void between everyones minds was where I felt my actual mind was stuck. Somehow not alive but not dead; stuck in a in a vast purgatory where no one could hear me scream or my words. It felt like a waking sleep paralysis. This is the main context point in the story, where Dresden accidentally discovers such a place and I explain it in the story as a flaw in the NeuroLink network. When Dresden discovers `The Nothing` he finds he is not alone, someone -- or something -- is there as well, laying in wait. For a time, my inner monologue was loud and seemed to exist on it's own, independent of myself. I was aware it was psychosis, but had no capability to disconnect from it, and so that became a plight for our player character as well. I tied the game and this etherial world together granting Dreesden the ability to step into the minds of anyone connected at will through `The Nothing` as a connective signularity. This would give Dresden the ability to control/read the minds of anyone in the world.
In 2017, two years after she died, I was absolutely dehumanized and destroyed as a person. I needed a way to take my mind off the persistence of loss and as Unreal Engine and resources became widely available, I followed my lifelong dream of wanting to make video games. I am a polyglot systems architect by trade, so the jump wasn't insurmountable, but still steep. The plan was never to make a serious game, I was just burning time and trying to overcome the loss of my mother. Eventually, I realized I might have something tangible with my writings and, so, over the next 7 years I worked tirelessly on this game, rewriting it a total of 6 times and along the way, hiring 3d modelers, actors, riggers, mocap actors, anyone I needed to bring my vision to reality.
Today, this chapter is coming to a close and I can share my work with the world.
This journey, this script, reliving that event hundreds of times a day definitely helped me become stronger and overcome something that destroyed my life.
I feel like I have written and built something special and this is my way to show the world through my work what a wonderful woman my mother was.
I hope you join me on this journey.
Follow on Instagram @winteryeargames for BTS and production details
The relationships you forge and the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you.
Conversations you have with characters will impact the course of the future and either provide you with power, or with peril.
With 12 possible endings to the game -- the future is up to you.
It's up to you to decide if your targets will become allies, enemies or non-existent.
The game begins with 10 primary targets and adversaries, all of which are affected by your conversations, gameplay and actions.
Your choices unlock different paths, missions and access to areas, new characters and opportunities.
Living in a connected city surrounded by cameras makes your life a bit more difficult when you are wanted in certain areas. PXL Corporation's police force is always on patrol.
Ruiners, bounty hunters with a license to kill exist in every area just waiting for a contract to come through. Make enemies with the wrong people and Ruiner contracts will be put out in that district. Ruiners are extremely skilled, heavily armed and look just like you and me. Watch your back.
Allies can be made or lost at any time.
Characters belong to factions and how you behave with them ultimately dictates how the entire faction with treat you.
Once an ally is made, this symbol appears outside their location.
Even the general population is an entire faction. If they witness you committing crimes, violence or you intimidate them; the entire population will turn against you, often calling the police or screaming for help and running away from you. Your behavior and discretion matters.
Drive, walk or ride through the dense concrete forest of Downtown Los Angeles.
There are over 92 city blocks with accessible buildings, businesses and activities.
Explore endless alleyways and countless open areas.
Explore every rooftop by using retractable fire escapes, ladders, bridges and more.
Take a walk underground in the sprawling sewer system
Fly across the skyline in any number of flying vehicles.
Purchase properties that are for sale and use them for special purposes or to generate income for your character.
The sprawling city is separated into districts. All of which have their own look, feel and purposes.
- Arts District
- Fashion District
- Little Tokyo
- Financial District
- Industrial District
- South Park
- Historic District
- Theatre District
- Bunker Hill
- Chinatown
- Toy District
- Skid Row
Making enemies in a district will often cause a Ruiner contract to be put out on you in that district. It's best to avoid those areas until either the contract expires or you resolve it with whoever established the contract.
Buy, steal, borrow or build your own motorcycles, cars and utility vehicles.
Vehicles include futuristic flying cars, retro-future flying cars, street motorcycles, rideable drones, flying motorcycles and more!
Build and race hovering desert hot rods or build a motorcycle from spare parts which will accompany you throughout the game.
Upgrade your drivers license level in-game to enable new altitudes, top speeds and acceleration.
Upgrade your cybernetic abilities by procuring STASIS CONNECTORS, tiny biotech devices which unlock the bodies natural abilities and even pair them with electronic components.
You have an internal bioelectric battery which is limited, so use cybernetic abilities with discretion.
Just some of the cybernetic abilities you can unlock:
- Targeted EMP discharge - discharge a focused bolt of electricity at one or more targets (living or mechanical).
- Burst EMP discharge - Discharge all your power in one a massive electrical field which shuts down all vehicles, devices, lights, electronics and darkens entire city blocks around you, often creating a dark environment which is difficult for enemies to see you (unless they are equipped with night/thermal vision)
- Deep Sight - Visualize electrical circuits and paths in buildings and around the city to find connected devices or central routers which you can hack to gain access.
- Glass Cloak - Become almost invisible to enemies. They can still see your weapon if you are holding one or more, so be cautious.
- AdremalEngine - Enable an adrenaline pump which makes time seemingly slow down while you continue to move at normal speed. Able to avoid bullets, attacks, vehicles and more.
and much more!
Fight enemies, gangs, police and more using your abilities or a plethora of futuristic weapons. Employ stealth tactics to take enemies down quietly, or go in guns blazing.
The game can be played non-lethal, or lethal.
Some of the weapons included are:
- Sniper rifles
- Rocket launcher
- Grenade launcher
- Sticky IED bombs with either proximity or remote triggers
- Anti-gravity gun for lifting enemies or objects
- STASIS field launcher which creates a field that slows down enemies, bullets, weapons or you (useful if you are falling and wish to not die)
- Frag grenade
- Iron cloud grenade - creates a cloud of iron dust, which when enemies breathe it in you can electrify it using your cybernetic augmentations to and electrocute all of them at once, or apply magnetism to the dust and have the particles rip through their bodies, killing them instantly.
- Numerous laser weapons and cannons
and much more!
The Next World is slated for a 2023 or early 2024 release on Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Nintendo® Switch®, PC (Windows®, Linux), Mac (later date). The game has been massively optimized from day 1 and built entirely on only a 6gb GTX-1060 running between 120fps - 160fps.
