The trailer for Humanity, a game that comes out next year, paints the picture of a puzzler that's partly about guiding large, faceless groups of people through obstacles and over jumps and partly about sending two civilian armies against each other in a fight to the death.
The "crowd action game" description from Japanese developer Tha Ltd doesn't give much away but the moody trailer, above, certainly looks interesting. Watching waves of humans tumble down a hole is hypnotising in a macabre way, and experimenting with ways to guide your group through different scenarios (such as when nine giant grey blocks slam into them from above) could be fun.
Those sections hark back to Lemmings, the 1991 puzzle platformer in which you guided your minions through levels, avoiding obstacles and helping as many of them as possible to reach the objective.
Then there's the more abstract stuff: the massive battles with hundreds of humans on screen smacking their way through the crowd. I can't work out from the trailer if there's some objective (perhaps you're guiding one group and your goal is to get past the other?) or if you're just in it for the spectacle à la Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator. Either way, watching the bullets and fists fly is mesmerising.
Humanity will be out some time next year. You can check it out, along with Tha Ltd's other projects, here.
Cheers, RPS.
