JoWooD Productions and DreamCatcher Games announced that they have signed Homegrown Games, a small independent Austrian developer, to develop the next chapter in the Painkiller brand. The new installment is called "Painkiller: Resurrection" and is set for release in Q4 2009.
Once more, it is up to the protagonist to find a way out of a grotesque world between heaven and hell, trapped between life and death. The development of Painkiller: Resurrection is based on the technology of the Painkiller engine, but with several improvements, including improved shadows, a higher texture resolution, moveable light sources, post processing, motion blur and ambient occlusion were implemented. In addition to these added features, the PK++ development team, lead by Steven "blowfish" Wilkins, has set up a coop-multiplayer campaign mode.
"Fans are developing for fans, and we will not compromise the needs of the gaming community - this central slogan is one of the main foundations for our projects. Now that we are confirmed as the developer of Painkiller: Resurrection we feel honored and very confident that, together, we will produce a high quality game with unique gameplay. Despite its age, the Painkiller engine is still amazing. It keeps consistently high frame rates even with reflections, occlusion, blur and HDR effects, much more than 600.000 polygones (just for the basic architecture), on maximum resolution and with dynamic shadow producing light sources," says Johann Ertl, Head of Development at Homegrown Games. "We've established a strong international team made up of Homegrown Games employees and gaming guys from the community. The current task in our development cycle is the campaign with new levels, new monsters, new bosse s and a new story, all in typical Painkiller style."
As with every journey into purgatory, the journey in Painkiller: Resurrection starts with death and pain. William 'Wild Bill' Sherman, an ex CIA Agent and specialist for dangerous missions in the Black Ops Special Unit has a big problem: during his last job, he has managed to not only kill the head of an illegal drug operation and a slew of innocent civilians, but himself in a fatal mistake. Trapped in a hostile place between heaven and hell, his soul flickers between the millions of faceless infidels and good and evil forces start to use Wild Bill for their own needs. But, it turns out that nothing is as it seemed at the beginning... solve the mystery and give the equilibrium between heaven and hell a little flip.
