Morbid Metal, Projekt Z, and Ferocious: Highlighting three games Baked in Germany

With Gamescom coming up at a rate of knots, we're all preparing to get into the German gaming spirit. But since that major show is still a couple of months away, we're going to get a headstart by spotlighting and delving into three exciting upcoming indie games, created by small or solo German developers, each using Unity as their engine of choice.

The games, while created by a collection of talented people that are familiar with one another, couldn't be any different. Whether it's a sci-fi hack 'n' slash rogue-lite, a first-person World War II zombie shooter, or an action-packed dinosaur survival-shooter, these three games bring a bit of everything to the table. We've caught up with their developers to learn a little bit more about what makes these games unique and how they came about.

Morbid Metal

We'll start with Morbid Metal from developer Screen Juice. This is a futuristic hack 'n' slash action game that revolves around four robotic protagonists that can be rapidly switched between in real-time to put their unique abilities and combat styles to good use.

Game director and CEO of Screen Juice Felix Schade explained the thought process behind this design, adding, "I had played around with the idea of this real-time shapeshifting based core gameplay system for a while, though in different genres. So when I started putting these two together, things really started to roll, and I immediately felt the potential for a very fun core loop revolving around the shapeshifting!" Schade continued, "This gives players the opportunity to explore a very engaging combat system full of stylish combos by using multiple characters and rapid shapeshifting. It's like playing Devil May Cry but with up to 4 characters simultaneously."

With hordes of enemies to slice through and powerful bosses to overcome all in the semi-procedurally generated levels spanning a variety of environmental biomes, these unique styles and abilities are paramount to your success, but sometimes even skill isn't enough to carry you forward.

This is because Morbid Metal has a rogue-lite design where you will need to permanently upgrade and improve the characters after every level. There are also temporary improvements specific to each run that are lost and reset if you die, allowing you to experiment with build crafting and see what suits your style of play.

Schade explained the choice to commit to a rogue-lite design: "This system, packed into an engaging Rogue-lite frame, gives players hours of action-packed slaughter fun and the possibility to keep things fresh due to the meta progression and different character rosters they can build and explore!"

Morbid Metal aims to be exciting and thrilling, Schade outlined exactly this by telling us, "Morbid Metal's main appeal lies in the unique combat system. Yes, we have some narrative, and yes we have other systems in the game, but in the end, this is about slaughtering enemies with bad-ass robot samurais while performing stylish moves."

Morbid Metal will be coming to PC in the future.

Projekt Z: Beyond Order

Moving away from the hack 'n' slash theme, 314 Arts' Projekt Z: Beyond Order takes us to World War II to experience an alternative version of the conflict where the undead run rampant. This is a single-player first-person shooter that is set on an explorable and terrifying island. The aim is to survive one day at a time all while mounting expeditions to hunt for supplies, new weapons, ammunition, blueprints, crafting materials, and more.

Founder of 314 Arts and game director on Projekt Z: Beyond Order, Justin Miersch, told us a little about the inspiration behind the game. "I would say games such as Black Ops 1 (Zombies), DayZ, and Left4Dead laid the foundation for everything that we have now. We just love how those games communicate fear, pressure, and loneliness. One day, we asked ourselves why not combine some of the elements that those games have, and we saw ourselves with a pretty cool and great concept that we cannot wait to show the world."

The idea of sculpting the experience to the player is a major point in Projekt Z: Beyond Order. The emphasis on looting, gathering, crafting, upgrading, trading, and selling while completing core and side objectives during an expedition is critical to the way that the game continues to engage the player. Designing and tailoring a weapon to the way you like to play is not just important but it's one of Miersch's favourite systems in the game.

"We worked super hard to give the players as many attachments for the weapons as possible, which, as you might know, is super hard to do when you deal with the WW2 timeline, but we also created a great narrative around it to immerse the Player even more."

While Projekt Z: Beyond Order is a single-player game, it also has a massive focus on cooperative elements too. You can tackle the entire experience alone or you can team-up with three friends to battle hordes of the undead, complete missions, and gather blueprints as a squad of fearless zombie slayers.

Projekt Z: Beyond Order is coming soon to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S consoles.

Ferocious

Last but far from least is OMYOG's Ferocious. This is an action-packed old-school first-person shooter that takes players to a rich, detailed, and brutal island lost to time. Trapped on a mysterious pacific island following a shipwreck, you soon discover that this island isn't just home to ruthless mercenaries but also bloodthirsty dinosaurs that have managed to survive and thrive since the cretaceous period.

Creator of OMYOG, Leonard Saalfrank noted, "Ferocious is the dream game I always wanted to make. It combines a lot of things I am very passionate about. For one, I was a huge dinosaur nerd as a kid and that fascination has stayed with me. So naturally they found their way into my work. One of my favourite games (and movies) growing up was Peter Jackson's King Kong. The awesome dinosaurs, creativity of the gameplay, thick atmosphere and sense of adventure the game had truly inspired me and was one of the reasons I became interested in game development."

The idea of Ferocious is to methodically work through a campaign where you find yourself at the bottom of the food chain. By exploring the island and unravelling its secrets, you'll begin to understand just how the dangerous dinosaurs and other fauna are victims to the ambitions of the mercenaries, and it's up to you to throw a spanner into their projects either through head-first and adrenaline-fuelled violence or sneaky and silent stealth instead.

These mercenaries are just one of many problems for you to overcome, as the dinosaurs are also a very real and deadly threat. Saalfrank explained how he got the design and idea of these prehistoric reptiles spot on.

"For this we hired an amazing concept artist - Wietze Fopma - who created the designs of the creatures based on what we know today while giving them a unique twist and mixing in features from other animals. For example feathers - we know today that many dinosaurs had feathers, so I definitely wanted that in the game. But we took creative liberties in how these feathers look to keep the designs more monstrous and scary. This extends to their behaviour and sound as well. I would say we did some things that were never done before, without spoiling anything."

He continued, "When you meet a dinosaur in the game, they are very fast and deadly. So while you can win a direct confrontation, it's risky, and to avoid using stealth. But that also depends on the type of dinosaur - they all have different personalities."

The world has plenty of secrets to discover and set pieces and elements to marvel at, thanks to its striking and meticulously crafted map. Saalfrank mentioned, "there was a lot of love and effort put into making the world feel alive and creating a thick atmosphere. I want players to feel immersed in the world we build. I am very excited to watch the first people wake up on the island and just start exploring in the first level."

Ferocious will be coming to PC when it launches down the line.

With Screen Juice, 314 Arts, and OMYOG all being based in Germany, it might not surprise you to hear that the three unique developers are all familiar with one another. 314 Arts' Miersch met OMYOG's Saalfrank at the Game Developers Conference in 2023 at the Unity Booth, before the former introduced the latter to Screen Juice's Schade at Gamescom a few months later in August.

Miersch said, "I feel like if you work in the Indie space, everything is just way more grounded, and you can really see the Passion in the developers' eyes, which is just inspiring. I'm just super happy to know both of them. They really helped us with a lot of Problems in the past."

Saalfrank then added, "We have all become friends and help each other out where we can. They are super passionate and talented people and I am glad I know them... They live quite far from me though so we don't see each other often, but we stay in touch through Discord."

Schade then added his thoughts on the topic, "It's really great to be able to connect about our journeys and share the great moments, but also our struggles with one another. They are really great guys and I am really excited for their projects (that I luckily get to test and play early 😉)! Us all using Unity as our engine has also made it possible for us to share knowledge and experience with one another, especially since we are all using similar tech. It has definitely helped a lot in the past!"

Be sure to head to Steam to to learn more about each of the three games as part of the ongoing Games Baked in Germany initiative.