A Strange New Story Driven Shooter Emerges
If you miss the era of weird, atmospheric shooters like the original Half Life, there is a new indie project you should have on your radar. Animator Bo Mathorne, best known for the cult animated short Backwater Gospel, is teaming up with developer Thomas Mygind to create Skarven, a moody first person shooter coming to PC.
Skarven is described as a crunchy, lo fi but not too lo fi FPS that leans hard into story and atmosphere. Instead of chasing ultra realistic graphics or arena style gunplay, it pulls inspiration from narrative heavy shooters from the late nineties and early 2000s. Think the pacing and world building of Half Life rather than a modern loot grind.
The reveal trailer does not show much raw combat but it does immediately set a tone. You walk up to a lonely country house overshadowed by an industrial mill in the background. The whole thing feels cold, isolated and slightly off. Inside, a TV broadcast in Danish quietly fills in bits of the world as you explore.
A Bleak Sci Fi World With Retro Shooter Style
Skarven’s setting mixes grounded social issues with eerie sci fi. The TV anchor mentions a rising retirement age and increased labor automation, both caused by a dramatic collapse in fertility rates. It is a world where people have largely stopped having children and everything is being propped up by machines and overworked adults. The tone will feel familiar if you have seen Children of Men.
As you creep through the house, you eventually find your first weapon: a chunky pistol that looks like something straight out of classic Fallout. It is not a sleek futuristic blaster, it is more of a heavy, industrial sidearm that fits the world’s grimy feel. Right after you pick it up, the TV signal cuts out and a strange humanoid creature appears to attack you. Fans of Half Life will likely recognize the visual and tonal nod to the Nihilanth, the unsettling final boss of the original game.
Visually, Skarven has a distinct identity. The art direction blends Mathorne’s surreal, slightly grotesque style with early PlayStation 2 era aesthetics, but upgraded to how you remember those games looking rather than how they actually looked. The textures are deliberately noisy and a bit pixelated, while the models and lighting are much sharper and more modern.
This mix is similar to what Nightdive Studios did with the System Shock remake. That game used high resolution models and effects but layered them with stylized, gritty textures to maintain a retro future vibe. Skarven aims for that same sweet spot where nostalgia, art direction and modern tech meet.
The result is a world that feels old school but not dated. It looks like something you could have played on a late life PS2 or early PC rig, but with the clarity and responsiveness of a current game.
From Backwater Gospel To A Full PC Game
Bo Mathorne’s earlier work, Backwater Gospel, gives a strong hint of the tone players can expect. The short film exploded in popularity after its 2011 release and now racks up millions of views on YouTube. If you want the best version, watch Mathorne’s own 4K reupload, which shows off the detailed, stylized animation.
Backwater Gospel is set in a dusty western town visited by a supernatural undertaker. Every time he appears, someone dies. This time, though, he simply arrives and waits, silently pushing the terrified townsfolk toward paranoia and violence. The short is grim, surreal, and visually striking, with warped character designs and an almost Tim Burton energy. Interestingly, many works it resembles, like Darkest Dungeon, Disco Elysium and Dont Starve, actually came after it. That helps explain why Skarven already feels like it has a strong artistic backbone behind it.
In Skarven, that same taste for the unsettling comes through in the muted color palette, uncomfortable creature design, and lonely environments. Instead of a noisy, crowded apocalypse, it looks more like a quiet world where things have gone wrong in slow motion and nobody quite noticed until it was too late.
For PC players, the project is especially interesting because it targets a niche that does not get as much love anymore: slower, story forward shooters. Rather than battle passes or huge open worlds, this type of game focuses on atmosphere, pacing and carefully crafted levels. If you like digging into game worlds, reading subtle environmental clues, and slowly peeling back a mystery, Skarven looks like it could be one to watch.
There is no demo or release window for Skarven yet. Right now, the main thing you can do is wishlist it on Steam to follow its development and give the team a signal that there is an audience for this style of shooter. Indie projects like this live or die on visibility, so wishlisting can genuinely help.
If you are looking to bulk up your future gaming plans, the game has also been highlighted alongside other upcoming titles on the 2025 PC Gaming Show Most Wanted Steam page. That hub gathers together many of the PC games that editors and industry guests are most excited about, so it can be a good place to discover more story driven or experimental projects similar to Skarven.
For now, Skarven remains a mysterious but promising entry in the growing wave of retro flavored shooters on PC. If you enjoy moody worlds, lo fi but stylish visuals, and shooters that care about story as much as shooting, this is one to keep on your radar.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/the-creator-of-popular-animated-short-the-backwater-gospel-is-making-an-fps-inspired-by-half-life-and-the-golden-age-of-narrative-first-person-shooters/
