The next SteamWorld game is 3D, co-op, and called Headhunter

Back in May, a financial report revealed there were "several new SteamWorld games" in development, and now here's a first look at one of them. Called SteamWorld Headhunter, it's apparently "a stylised and colourful, third-person co-op action adventure with a head-popping twist." The head-popping seems to be literal, according to the teaser trailer, which shows a wild west shootout between two robots.

The SteamWorld series has avoided settling on a genre for any length of time, with developer Image & Form—now merged with Thunderful Games—bouncing from tower defense to 2D metroidvania to turn-based tactics across the various SteamWorld games.

"The robot setting opens up all kinds of possibilities," studio head Brjann Sigurgeirsson in our 2017 profile. "It may seem as if establishing your own world, character gallery or setting and using that over and over again would restrict you, but it's the other way around: it gives you the freedom to experiment with every other parameter. If you yourself know how your world and your characters work, you don't have to think or worry about that aspect too much. And if people are familiar with your idea and have been 'taught' what to expect, they can be surprised by all the other things you've thought up."

To celebrate the reveal, Steamworld Dig 2 is free on Steam and GOG for a limited time, but you'll need to be quick to grab it.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.