Cruelty Squad developer Ville Kallio (who publishes under the name Consumer Softproducts) has announced a collaboration with Helsinki-based apparel company Ikono on clothing featuring art from the standout 2021 shooter. Pre-orders are open now, with an estimated delivery in February or March.
Cruelty Squad is a surreal, abrasive, and one-of-a-kind shooter, an immersive sim all about wanton violence in a hypercapitalist future with its own alien morality. Cruelty Squad is an incredibly fun FPS sandbox and a game with opaque, enticing secrets, one that demands forum deep dives and information sharing between players to uncover its hidden levels and endings. Cruelty Squad's unique visual identity and prickly, deadpan, and occasionally haunting writing have inspired a stable of imitators in the indie space as well, and its distinctive sense of punk cool makes it a great candidate for an apparel tie-in.
The star of the show (and the one I'm gonna cop for myself) is the tee with Cruelty Squad's unnerving game over message: "Divine Light Severed. You are a flesh automaton animated by neurotransmitters." PCG news writer Lincoln Carpenter and I were both tempted by the "Godhead Heavy Industries" baseball cap, but being large headed individuals who can't pull off hats, will leave it for those of you with more reasonably-sized noggins. PCG news writer Joshua Wolens, meanwhile, was intrigued by the "Resist Cocaine" t-shirt: "The consequences of abusing mind altering substances can be devastating. The psyche is a delicate high precision instrument, a small push can set it permanently off-balance. You will destroy your life, you will destroy the lives of others. We will get you."
Pre-orders on Ikono's Cruelty Squad line will be open until December 30. As for Consumer Softproducts, the developer's follow-up is a hybrid FPS/mech game called Psycho Patrol R that will release in early access at the end of March.
