This isn’t exactly game play.  It’s more like a technology demo, but it’s for a new game called Get Even, being created by a Polish game company called The Farm 51. To be released in 2015, it takes advantage of the new power of personal computing to render environments based on full environmental scans.  To be clear, modelers and painters still had a major hand in what you’re about to see – but they are now starting from a much higher foundation.

The clip mixes live action with animation, but to be honest, it’s very hard to tell the difference.  Which is which? It uses an environmental scanning technology called Thorskan, created by Polish special effects house Better Reality. Thorskan was created for – and is currently being used by – motion picture production companies, but the technology is also useful for games.  The Farm 51 is using it to put Get Even for  PC, XBox One and Playstation 4.  The Thorskan technology itself combines scanned environments with detailed in-scene models for a virtual reality experience unmatched by anything you’ve probably ever seen.

The story is focused on the memories of the game’s heroes. The route the player chooses to follow determines the hereos’ personality as the plot unfolds. The Farm 51 said Get Even mixes elements of thriller and horror with exploration.

“When players embark on a single-player mission, others on the network can join the quest as enemies, so players never know whether their opponents are human or CPU-based,” the developer explained.

“This suspense further heightens the player’s feeling of a threat.”

The game features weapons that fire around corners, so you can shoot from a safe position. Weapons can be linked with the player’s in-game smart phone to add a sight functionality.

“As an independent developer, it would be foolish to go head-to-head with the larger companies and create a ‘me too’ knock-off, and frankly we wouldn’t be interested in doing it,” said The Farm 51 boss Wojtek Pazdur.

“We believe that there is still a ton of content and design creativity that has yet to be explored in first-person genre, as well as an audience beyond the warfare player — those are the people we are going for with Get Even.”

This tech demo gives us a hint of what might be possible – but The Farm 51 isn’t even completely certain they’ll release in 2015, so we’re still a ways out from seeing what they can really do.  Still, this is some pretty jaw-dropping stuff, and it is rendered in real time on their game engine.

What do you think about it?  Post your comments.

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