The latest Gungrave game, slated for earlier this year, was officially unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show, more than 20 years after the series’ original debut. The new video, which mixes a previously published CG movie with fresh gameplay footage, showcases Gungrave’s third-person shooting in a contemporary setting. Take a peek at the video above.
Ikumi Nakamura, a former artist on The Evil Within games and the former director of the forthcoming Ghostwire: Tokyo, is also working on Gungrave G.O.R.E, though her role has not been revealed.
According to IGN, Nakamura told TGS: “This cooperation with Gungrave G.O.R.E has been a good experience for me.” “I played the original Gungrave so it brought back a lot of great memories. From now on you can expect more updates and more news!”
The opening part of the teaser has a darkly hilarious tone, with the main figure falling into a dock full of evil people by the rocket-powered coffin and twisting a dude’s skull in slow motion before whipping out his comically enormous guns.
The first Gungrave game was released for PlayStation 2 in 2002, a year after Devil May Cry. Grave, a former member of a fictional criminal organization, returns from the dead to get revenge on his members and his childhood best friend on the show.
While Gungrave focused almost exclusively on the third-person shooter, it had a distinct advantage: character design and a story by Yasuhiro Nightow, the mangaka, and author of Trigun. The connection is immediately evident in the armament of the eponymous character, the sharply tilted face and clothing, and other characters on Gungrave’s original PS2 cover, or in one of the game’s cutscenes. Grave’s little coffin looks like the cross-shaped weapon carried by Nicholas D. Wolfwood of Trigun.
The games were immediately converted into a full-fledged animated series by Madhouse. Two years later, a sequel to the game was released. Kosuke Fujishima, a veteran Tales of… JRPG character designer and manga artist on Sakura Wars and Oh My Goddess, also helped design the original Gungrave’s machines.
The aesthetic appears to have been changed considerably, with this new tomb looking more like an ordinary Grimdark hero while retaining many of the old Gungrave accessories. He’s armed with huge twin pistols, and the coffin strapped to his back allows him to slice through enemies and execute powerful attacks like a flamethrower. All of this, plus a giant robot to fight, seems to be a nod to the overwhelming visual aesthetic of Nightow, which was so dominant in Trigun.
Gungrave G.O.R.E. is slated for release in 2022. It was created by Iggymob, who also created Gungrave VR and the bizarre WWII air combat game Dogfighter.
