Liquid Swords, a Swedish studio established by former Avalanche Studios founder Christofer Sundberg, has shared the first in-game screenshots of its GTA-like open-world game, and they look stunning. When asked whether these were actual images, the official X account confirmed they were real.
The game is being developed with Unreal Engine 5, whereas Avalanche has historically used its own Apex engine for Just Cause, Mad Max, and Rage 2. Tech Director Fredrik Lönn explained the engine choice with the following statement:
Custom engines were historically the way forward, and that’s what my former team at Avalanche did over 18 years ago when development started on Just Cause 1. The landscape has changed since then, and now it’s quite the opposite. We decided to go with Unreal Engine 5. Unreal has been proven for high-quality AAA games, both by Epic themselves in the case of Fortnite and by other game studios worldwide shipping amazing games on Unreal. With Epic making improvements toward open-world development, we get full access to the source code, and the integrations with other software and pipelines are excellent.
Liquid Swords was founded in December 2020. Sundberg recalled why he created this new studio:
In December 2020, I set out on a journey to make a difference in the world of game development– which has been my professional and entertainment world since the early 90s. I want to make a difference to how games are made, how the teams work, and how the creative process evolves. Liquid Swords is the realization of an ambition to refocus the game-development process.
Around two years later, the studio announced it had received an investment from NetEase Games. Sundberg said at the time:
NetEase Games has been exceptionally supportive from the very get-go, believing in our high ambitions and quality-focused approach to game development. We are very pleased to have them as our partners on this adventure and with their support, we can begin to realize the vision for our studio.
While those screenshots are indeed very reminiscent of a photorealistic version of Rockstar’s GTA series, Liquid Swords is making a single player open world, narrative driven action RPG. We still don’t know anything else, but hopefully that will change soon following these first screenshots.
