Manhunt-Inspired Game Butcher's Creek Announced

A new game inspired by Rockstar Games' Manhunt, Butcher's Creek, has been announced. Rockstar Games is best known for Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, these two franchises are really the peak of the studio's history, but they also came with a lot of controversy. In GTA, you can violently kill people, have sex, do drugs, and a lot more which really did not sit well with people who don't play games. However, Rockstar really pushed the envelope with a much more horrific series known as Manhunt. This is a horror series where players basically star in a snuff film and have to violently murder people in order to survive. It also got its own share of media attention with politicians like Hillary Clinton claiming the game should be rated AO (Adults Only), the worst rating a game can get from the ESRB and significantly restricts its reach.

Although the Manhunt series died out in the late 2000s, Dusk developer David Szymanski has announced a new game called Butcher's Creek that directly cites Manhunt as an inspiration. Butcher's Creek will see you fighting for your life against a gang of killers in gritty environments with everyday objects like hammers and 2x4 planks. To make it all the more eerie and brutal, you'll be viewing the game through the lens of a creepy VHS camera. Szymanski noted the game is definitely leaning into the snuff film aesthetic as opposed to being a "slasher", but there is a bit of crossover there.

"A troubled loner with a hunger for cinematic gore finds himself on the other side of the camera when rumors of authentic snuff videotapes lead him to an abandoned cabin near Butcher's Creek, Pennsylvania," reads a Steam description. "What starts as illicit urban exploration quickly becomes a fight for survival when he's captured by a gang of sadistic killers. Now his only option is to pick up a box cutter, a hammer, a pickaxe, or whatever else is at hand, and unleash a little video violence of his own."

Butcher's Creek is due out on Steam in 2024 and it looks like it has the potential to be pretty gnarly. It likely won't be for those with weak stomachs as even the screenshots paint a pretty grizzly experience. Only time will tell if it warrants any kind of uproar, but it looks like it could be a pretty wild game.