Do you remember Death Cargo? The obscure Mortal Kombat-inspired brawler from an Italian studio Necrostorm known for indie slasher flicks? Well after disappearing a few years ago it’s back. Sort of.
The YouTubers behind Super Best Friends Play channel got their hands on a version of the game and uploaded it for today’s episode of “Saturday Morning Scrublords.” The game, which was supposed to officially release in 2014 but never did, looks just as grizzly, unpolished, and ridiculous as you’d imagine, flipping back and forth between stages filled with severed limbs and silly B movie death animations.
“We finally got it,” the group said introducing the their playthrough of the game. And how exactly did a copy of the game, which has eluded the people who actually pre-ordered it for years, fall into their hands? Apparently, it was a result of the efforts of some of their fans. “Thanks to the eight or twelve people who finally braved the Russian dark web,” the hosts shouted at the beginning of the video before pushing past any more discussion of the specifics.
Once upon a time there was an entire saga surrounding Death Cargo and interested parties attempting to lay hands on it back when you could still request to purchase a copy from the studio behind it. However, whether the game really existed, or was simply vaporware riding on the back of some compelling demo footage, was never completely clear. Fans trying to get access to it were given the run-around by Necrostorm with multiple delays, excuses, and download codes that didn’t work.
Some people claimed to be in possession of working builds, but footage didn’t last long on YouTube and what people had played appeared to be extremely buggy and incomplete.
And the game still doesn’t exist in the “official” sense, with no confirmation that any of the people who originally tried to buy it received anything. But years later, possibly thanks to this person simply stumbling across a version of the game on a Spanish website and proceeding to secure a copy for the Super Best Friends crew, we can finally get a good, long look at one of the most unnerving implementations of FMV technology I’ve ever seen.
Update (4:15pm): As a reader messaged me to point out, it actually seems as though Necrostorm is attempting to re-brand Death Cargo as Gorebreaker. The latter is allegedly coming to Xbox One and Windows at some point, although the “game info” page is still empty.