Void Bastards is a stylish strategy shooter from the co-founder of Irrational Games

A studio led by the co-founder of Irrational Games—developer of Bioshock and System Shock 2—has revealed a new strategy shooter called Void Bastards, and it's due out in 2019. 

Revealed at Microsoft's X018 event today, Void Bastards will see you try to escape the Sargasso Nebula. You hop from enemy ship to enemy ship, choosing your next destination on a top-down galaxy map. On each ship, you'll get a blueprint-style floorplan of what you're about to face, planning out a route around the locations of enemy grunts, turrets, and terminals that you might be able to use to your advantage.

You'll have to balance the risk of dying with the rewards of staying aboard for longer. Remaining on the ship gives you more time to find loot to build new weapons and items (including a meowing robo-kitty), or grab the food and fuel you need to keep your crew alive. But linger too long and you might get overrun, losing whatever you've picked up.

You can check out the trailer above. I love the comic book art style, and it seems to have a decent sense of humour. 

It's being developed by Blue Manchu, which is led by Irrational co-founder Jonathan Chey. The studio made CCG/RPG hybrid Card Hunter back in 2013—here's our glowing review.

Samuel Horti

Samuel Horti is a long-time freelance writer for PC Gamer based in the UK, who loves RPGs and making long lists of games he'll never have time to play. 

Latest in FPS
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
Starfield's companion robot giving a thumbs-up
Former Bethesda dev who quit Starfield to go solo says it's 'much less stressful as an indie' without daily meetings or 'office politics': it's 'very refreshing to just care about the game'
A crew of prospectors in Wildgate, featuring a robot, a rabbit man, and a small aquatic creature in a combination mech/aquarium.
Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime's new company is putting Sea of Thieves-style shenanigans in space with a new crew-based shooter
Team Fortress Spy being shocked
An FPS studio pulled its game from Steam after it got caught linking to malware disguised as a demo, but the dev insists it was actually the victim of a labyrinthine conspiracy
Neighbors Suburban Warfare screenshot a child aims a slingshot at a man from across a cul-de-sac.
A beta of backyard FPS Neighbors: Suburban Warfare is out now, and the balance discussion is hysterical: nerf trash can lids and children
Fragpunk
Somebody finally figured out casual Counter-Strike
Latest in News
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'