Black Annex is the Syndicate-style indie game you're looking for

You already know how we'd reboot Syndicate , but developer Lance McDonald is going one step further than our rampant daydreaming by actually making a very Syndicate-like game. It's called Black Annex , it's due out later this year, and it's not a first-person shooter, so it's got one up on EA/Starbreeze's point-missing lens-flare fest already. How do you feel about isometric corporate espionage, hacking, theft and murder? If you aren't all that interested, well that's what persuadertrons are for.

I've been hacking the Black Annex website, and after emptying Lance's bank account and changing his Spotify password for the hell of it, here's what I dug up about the game. "Black Annex is an action strategy game where the player operates the hands-on business of corporate sabotage and infiltration. Manage company resources, customise and outfit your agents before deploying them to steal, destroy, kidnap and kill as the mission and your own choices dictate."

Here's my favourite bit: hostages taken during missions can be recruited and deployed in subsequent outings, like in the excellent (and unfortunately AWOL on PC) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Other than that, yes, it's like a lo-fi Syndicate, but with full mod support - and with perhaps less of a cyberpunk feel to the rather cute pixel aesthetic. See for yourself in the trailer below, then head to Steam Greenlight if you approve of such things.

Thanks, IndieGames !

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.