VA-11 Hall-A developer Sukeban Games announces “Active Time Action” game .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND for PC

July 3, 2024

VA-11 Hall-A Developer Sukeban Games has announced .45 Parabellum Bloodhoundan active time action game with a mix of real-time and turn-based combat. It will be available for PC via Steam. It will be playable for the first time at BitSummit Drift from July 19-21.

Here is an overview of the game from Sukeban Games:

Around

A new world and characters from the award-winning studio that brings you Cyberpunk Bartender Action: VA-11 Hall-A.

That is .45 Parabellum Bloodhound.

Dodge attacks, stop time and kill them all

With a mix of real-time and turn-based combat, .45 Parabellum Bloodhound offers an engaging experience for players of all levels.

Get personal

Follow the unvarnished story of Reila Mikazuchi, a killing machine who emerges from depression and tries to rebuild her life using what she does best. A well-trodden path whose consequences are well known, but is her greatest enemy actually at gunpoint?

Key Features

Experience the tightly designed Active Time Action combat system, suitable for both newcomers and veterans.

Explore seven carefully designed, atmospheric levels with hand-placed encounters, dialogue, and puzzles.

Enjoy detailed lo-fi graphics that enhance the texture of this richly detailed cyberpunk world.

Immerse yourself in a gripping storyline waiting to be discovered.

And here are some additional details about Sukeban Games’ Christopher Ortiz:

what is .45 Parabellum Bloodhound?

An active time action game that sounds a bit like nonsense, but we like nonsense.

tl;dr, you move and dodge in real time while waiting for an action bar to fill up at a rate determined by character and weapon stats. Once it does, you can pause time and plan your offensive.

The combat system is of course based on one of my personal favorites: Parasite Eve, but that’s where the comparisons end.

I’ll talk about it another time.

The plot: You play Reila Mikazuchi, a washed-up mercenary whose heyday is long past. In a last-ditch attempt to grab life by the horns, she decides to return to life, only to find that the real enemy is not standing in front of her gun.

—The heroine of the game, Reila. Designed by me with the help of Merengedoll.

The entire game takes place in these highly atmospheric environments, peppered with hand-placed encounters. You’ll roam around and find secrets hidden throughout the game world and talk to some pretty unique characters. Not to mention the cool boss fights at the end of each level.

We’re currently aiming for seven chapters, five of which are currently playable from start to finish. Most of the features and story are already locked in. We highly doubt that much will change from this initial description, but we never know… There’s always something we can cut to finish it this year.

When to publish?

No idea. I don’t want to give any timetables here, so as not to repeat N1RV Ann-A situation (although we have an internal one), but we’re hoping it happens sooner rather than later. I was actually going to wait until we had the entire game finished before officially announcing it, but it’s gotten a lot harder to sell games. It’s not 2016 anymore, so we need to start now and stockpile these wishlists and all that shit if we want this game to have a chance.

In short: when it is finished.

Look forward to monthly devlogs (I’ve been writing them for years now, although I’m behind for very good reasons) and progress photos on my Twitter account and Sukeban’s.

N1RV Ann-A?

No news on that front. Sorry. I know this is the main event that everyone wants to see, but .45 Parabellum Bloodhound is well advanced in development and I have decided to devote my full attention to it for the foreseeable future. Once we ship it, the sky is the limit.

Who is working on it?

That would be me as writer and director, with a friend who prefers to remain anonymous as programmer and co-creator (we came up with the story, gameplay and characters together many years ago). Merengedoll (by VA-11 Hall-A Kids! Fame), always the soldier, helped me with character, enemy, boss and production design. Juneji (also from VA-11 Hall-A kids!) is doing the soundtrack and some 3D work; and for the first time ever, we have someone pulling our butts to keep things moving at a comfortable pace.

If you’re familiar with my solo performance, you know roughly what to expect in terms of mood and story – for better or for worse.

Stray notes

Spanish, English, and Japanese localizations are planned for day one (we hope for more, but these three are currently within our bandwidth).

There are no plans for a downloadable demo, as maintaining a separate version would probably drive us crazy.

After a few reboots, the current version of the project has been in development for about two years, but if we’re being blunt, the programmer and I have been talking about doing something like this since high school. It really makes you think.

VA-11 Hall-Aas for my contributions to the visual elements and atmosphere, it was a mix of subtle and direct inspirations. This time, I tried to isolate my brain from outside influences as much as possible, aside from the initial idea for the battle system and other mechanics. Game development is a lot of work, so I want to provide a unique “sukeban” experience, whatever that means.

For everyone in Japan: Play it on Bitsummit Drift!

Lucky people in the Kyoto area can get a taste of the game’s first chapter at this year’s BitSummit Drift. July 19 (weekday), 20, and 21.

Be sure to come by and take a look!

We plan to showcase the game at more events around the world in the coming future, but don’t have many details at this time. Stay tuned.

For those who can’t be there: On July 19th we will release the first trailer of the game! This is our YouTube channel.