The horror driving game Beware by solo developer Ondrej Svadlena first made an appearance in 2016, presenting the somewhat unique premise of a protagonist driving a car while pursued by unknown hostiles in the night. A couple of demos of the survival horror title have been released, the most recent in 2019, but for the most part news about Beware’s development has been minimal. That doesn’t mean that the game has been forgotten, however.
The game demos of Beware take place in a non-specific, sparsely populated location, with dense fog and trees obscuring the field of view and contributing to an overall sense of foreboding. In the dark of night, the player is driving for an undisclosed reason on rain-slicked backroads and, so far at least, the protagonist never leaves the car. Occasional landmarks provide a touch of familiarity as a second vehicle relentlessly chases the player for an unknown reason.
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Svadlena has released a new gameplay trailer, showing off a bit more of Beware’s environments. It turns out that the game doesn’t take place entirely in creepy video game backwoods, but the new locations aren’t exactly reassuring. A broken city skyline shrouded in fog, long stretches of tall buildings lit eerily with orange lights and, inexplicably, a forest of glowing lampposts. The pursuers are not confined to everyday street thugs in a regular car either. Tanks with lasers and oversized tires join in the fray, as well as other alien or futuristic-looking vehicles.
Rather than clarifying what’s going on in the game, the new Beware trailer only adds to the mystery, and those interested in checking out Svadlena’s work can download the free 2019 demo for PC from IndieDB. The title currently has no set release date, although the developer has stated on his Patreon page that Beware’s separate environments are ready to be merged together and populated with additional content. The Patreon serves as a form of crowd-funding, allowing patrons to play new content as a work in progress and provide immediate feedback.
Two inspirations for Svadlena’s survival horror driving project are the games Driver and 2011’s Test Drive Unlimited 2. Both titles had enjoyable car chase sequences, but, according to Svadlena, seemed to cheat on the car physics. For example, the police cars in Driver were heavier and could accelerate more quickly and achieve higher speeds than the player. For this reason, in addition to polishing Beware’s environments, Svadlena will be focusing on integrating true-to-life physics into the game. The goal is for the player’s vehicle to drive as realistically as possible, with the suspension reacting to every bump and swerve in the road in a believable manner.
Beware is currently in development.
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Sources: Patreon, The Guardian