This upcoming co-op roguelike hack-and-slasher looks like Braveheart crossed with Heavy Metal

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Revealed during today's Summer Game Fest showcase, Tears of Metal is a roguelike co-op hack-and-slasher in which a battalion of angry Scottish warriors (because they're always angry) butcher their way through massive hordes of enemies who have invaded their island, driven by the dark, dangerous powers of the Dragon Stone Meteor.

Players will have access to multiple unique characters and more than 100 "artifacts" that can be combined with powerful upgrades to create "distinctive and devastating builds." Your stalwart soldiers gain experience between campaigns that will enable permanent upgrades, but the flip side of that coin is that permadeath is a problem: If they go down, they stay down.

There's a little bit of management involved, too. When you're not doing battle, you'll recruit and train new soldiers and expand your settlement to enable new abilities, upgrades, and challenges.

I really like the visual style of Tears of Metal: It's cartoonish but also really meaty, with a bit of a Darkest Dungeon vibe to it. As grim and gory as it is, there also seems to be kind of a lighthearted, even silly element to it—everyone seems so happy to be there, and enthusiastic about their work. Or maybe that's just the music throwing me off? Speaking of which, I hope the music in the trailer is representative of what's in the game: Highland metal really works for me.

Tears of Metal is set to come out sometime in 2025, and is up for wishlisting now on Steam.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.