When Polish developers Chronospace first unveiled the dieselpunk game War Mechanic, the pitch seemed perfect on paper. Start the trailer with a bang: a mushroom cloud unfurls, then collapses. Present players with a juicy alternate history where Soviet Russia kills the United States president. Use grainy, real-world, black-and-white footage to really sell the concept. Maybe lighten the mood a little with a yellow robot; it’ll remind people of Borderlands. Chronospace couldn’t have asked for a better stage for the reveal, honestly. The Game Awards presented a grand opportunity to tell the world about a war-torn world that birthed specialized mechanics who can build anything.
The trailer did okay. 55,000 views — some indies would kill for that type of attention. But the proposal and its monotonous narrator didn’t really land. Most of the YouTube comments are composed of baffled viewers filled with questions.
“I probably would be more interested if the trailer mentioned things like what type of a game it was,” reads the top-voted reply. “This trailer amazingly told nothing,” another viewer opined.
An official game reveal is a big deal. It’s a developer’s first — and sometimes only — chance to convince players why they should pay attention. Studios hire companies to orchestrate the perfect rollout: trailers, screenshots, websites, interviews, the works. Milestones like early access and full-on release are new opportunities to find an audience, sure. But if that initial announcement goes poorly, players can make up their minds about a game before they even give it a chance. For many developers, a flubbed reveal at The Game Awards might be a death sentence.
So Chronospace went back to the drawing board. The studio brought on The Witcher 1 and 2 writers Jacek Komuda and Maciej Jurewicz to help retool the game’s premise. Together, with a team of veterans who have worked on games like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3, the studio drafted up a new plan. Same name and overarching concept, but with a different narrative thrust and gameplay mechanics. This wouldn’t just be an update on the direction of the game. It would almost be an entirely different game.
Chronospace thus presented it all as a “re-reveal,” complete with a new trailer and PR blast. The new trailer couldn’t have been more different than the first unveiling. Nothing conceptual. From the jump, its gameplay meant to grab the player by the throat. Protagonist Jack Wallace traded his boring wrench for enormous guns worthy of Doom, and he’s taking on robots of all stripes. And with an Unreal 5 visual overhaul, the graphics look as crisp as audiences expect from big-budget games.
Perhaps the biggest change was the quietest one, though. Where the first reveal focused on the historical aspect of War Mechanic, the second one honed in on the action. The backdrop still had an alt-history bent — what if the Manhattan Project had been sabotaged? But politics weren’t at the forefront anymore. Specifics regarding the politics are instead relegated to things like YouTube and storefront descriptions. In a media landscape that currently leans conservative, a pivot like this might come across as self-preservation.
Speaking to gamexplore, Chronoscape’s Piotr Watrucki says the re-reveal wasn’t influenced by a tense political climate, but rather a desire to build a more cohesive game. Crafting is still a part of that vision, but players will take on a more active role than what Chronoscape originally announced. Beyond the survival elements, players can explore the world on foot and through vehicles. Players will still have a base that they can optimize and automate to fight for them, but the new scope is much more expansive than a sci-fi crafting sim. There will be a variety of zones and biomes, NPCs to interact with, and plenty of hostile robots to destroy. The hope is that all the different systems will inform one another. Players can craft and customize their arsenal, and they can bolster the forces mired in the larger conflict.
“The core idea of being a mechanic in a world at war gave us a lot of space and freedom to shape the game in different directions,” Watrucki says. “We evolved from a pure management game into a first-person action adventure with strategy and survival elements. That required us to rethink pacing, tone, and even level design. It wasn’t easy, but our experience from large productions helped us make those decisions efficiently.”
As a Polish developer, the American media landscape isn’t at the forefront of Chronoscape’s daily lives. But it’s difficult to fully detangle politics from War Mechanic. Many of the developers at the studio were born in 1980, when Poland was still under Soviet influence. Watrucki notes that this background has indeed shaped how the people at the studio look at the world.
“We were always fascinated by what could have been — by alternate histories and the question of how small twists of fate could change everything,” Watrucki says, adding that the game was never meant to comment on current politics. Instead, the studio wants to use the alternate reality premise to explore universal themes, like greed and morality.
“Of course, the modern world inevitably seeps into creative work — we’re all shaped by the times we live in — but our focus was always on storytelling and atmosphere, not ideology,” Watrucki says.
According to Watrucki, finding the balance between a grounded world that is both influenced by yet completely detached from the real world was one of the biggest challenges that came with working on the game. The hope is that players won’t just sit there and be told what’s happening, and instead will steadily piece things together as they explore the world. This is why Chronoscape enlisted the help of Jacek Komuda and Maciej Jurewicz.
“They write books, direct their own films, and bring a unique historical and cinematic sensibility to War Mechanic,” Watrucki says. “Their contribution added enormous depth to the world and gave the story a richer, more authentic tone.”
So, did the re-reveal work? The new trailer has three times as many views as the first one, without the boosted visibility that comes with The Game Awards. And this time, the comments are enthusiastic.
“Looks like Mad Max and Metro Exodus hooked up,” one comment says. “Reminds me a little bit of Pacific Drive combined with Fallout 4 approach,” another opined.
War Mechanic has no current set release date. But with the renewed vigor of the re-reveal, an Early Access Steam build is just around the horizon, Chronoscape teases.
