Info about Dark Future: Blood Red States:

Official game description:
_"All of the stuff that I feel makes a great car combat sequence that Mad Max does so well ... this is that, in a strategy game. I heartily recommend"_ - **Tom Chick, Quarter to Three**  
_"If Speed Racer (the cartoon) had a baby with Death Race (the Roger Corman versions) and it ended up in a Mad Max future, I think you’d end up with this game... Personally, I think this game has earned a permanent spot on my hard drive"_ - **Adam Harrison, Bell of Lost Souls**  
_"Like Qvadriga, a title that DF sometimes brings to mind, this is a game that fills a five-minute play window as efficiently and agreeably as it fills a thirty-minute one. Exhilarating, easy on the eye and ear, and very moreish"_ - **Tim Stone, Rock Paper Shotgun**  
_"Turns white line fever into something thinky"_ - **Jody Macgregor, PC Gamer**  
America. 2025.  
The government is non-existent and society, struggling against pollution, stagnation, catastrophic climate change and gang warfare, is at the point of collapse. You are a highway warrior for hire, taking on contracts to keep the few laws that exist, in check. You battle against roving gangs to control the dangerous roads and earn a living in these dangerous times.  
Tool up your vehicle with a range of weapons and upgrades and head out into The Big Empty. Explore this darkly absurd land, with danger and destruction at every turn.  
Customise your vehicle with a variety of weapons - from powerful ballistic artillery, to searing high-tech lasers and makeshift deployable explosives - all designed to cause maximum havoc and destruction on the roads.  
Fight against a range of dangerous gangcults in dramatic locations, with jaw-dropping physics and visual effects, all powered by Unreal Engine 4.  
Take full control of the chaotic carnage with Command Mode. Slow time down and issue orders to your vehicles in a real time strategy game unlike any other. Choose the right combination of weapons and car upgrades to put the enemy down for good.  
Customise your car with special upgrades to suit your playstyle. Want to go totally offensive? Upgrade your Combat Lasers and Multi-Missile Launchers to cause maximum damage. Use your character's special abilities to outwit and outmaneuver the opposition. Put the brakes on your enemies with Road Spikes and Concussion Mines to stop them dead in their tracks. Invest in your Ramming Boost to chase down enemies and smash them off the road. Use these to maximise your payday and keep the dollars rolling in.  
Eight stories introduce you to the dystopian society of Games Workshop’s car combat universe of Dark Future. Take on missions and attempt to survive in the scorched wastes of America in brutal, endlessly replayable run-based campaigns.

Release date: 16 May, 2019

Categories: Vehicle Combat, Real-time with Pause, Tactical Combat, Roguelike, Vehicle Customization, Single-player Story


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Engaging Core Gameplay Experience (weight 0.99): Players consistently found the game to be fun, interesting, and unique, offering a satisfying core loop that delivers good value for its price. Its easy-to-learn mechanics and 'one more level' appeal contribute to an overall positive and addictive experience, fulfilling the desire for a quality car combat game.
- Unique Tactical Car Combat (weight 0.67): The game is highly praised for its distinctive and well-executed tactical car combat system. The 'bullet-time' or 'Command Mode' feature, allowing players to slow down or pause for strategic decisions, is a core highlight, enabling both fast-paced action and methodical, satisfying vehicular battles.
- Impressive Visuals and Physics (weight 0.34): Reviewers frequently noted the game's strong visual presentation, competent graphics, and well-designed environments, especially for an indie title. The robust physics engine creates chaotic, unpredictable, and fun car crashes, leading to spectacular and beautiful explosions.
- Deep Progression and Customization (weight 0.28): The game features an engaging progression system that allows for meaningful car customization through upgrades in weapons, armor, and technology. Unlocking new characters, selecting perks, and completing challenges add significant depth, replayability, and strategic decision-making to each run.
- Excellent Board Game Adaptation (weight 0.17): Players commend the game as an outstanding adaptation of a Games Workshop board game, praising its faithful recreation of the tabletop experience. It successfully captures the original feel and universe while thoughtfully redesigning mechanics for an enjoyable single-player video game format.
- Atmospheric 80s Retro-futuristic Aesthetic (weight 0.13): The game's aesthetic is highly praised for its successful blend of Mad Max and 80s retro-futuristic sci-fi, reinforced by a fitting and beautiful soundtrack. This combination of music and visual style creates a strong, immersive, and evocative post-apocalyptic atmosphere.
- Rich and Humorous World-building (weight 0.11): The game's 'Dark Future' world is well-developed, incorporating elements of cyberpunk, political satire, and cosmic horror. Players enjoy the amusing writing, jokes, and satirical in-universe emails, which add flavor and contribute to a darkly comedic view of the setting.
- Intuitive Command Mode and EZ Drive (weight 0.08): The game's 'Command Mode' and 'EZ Drive' features are noted for their intuitive design. Command Mode allows for detailed tactical input, while EZ Drive provides sufficient control without overwhelming players, making the gameplay accessible and manageable.
- Varied Missions and Objectives (weight 0.05): The game offers a good variety of mission types, including chasing bosses, escorting NPCs, and hacking AI trucks. This, combined with different factions and map zones, provides ample replayability and keeps the gameplay experience fresh and engaging.
- Useful Targeting and Weapon Variety (weight 0.05): The inclusion of laser sights that indicate when an enemy is in range significantly aids targeting. Additionally, the game features a robust variety of weapon types, such as explosives, machine guns, shotguns, and lasers, allowing for diverse combat strategies.
- Free Camera for Observation (weight 0.04): The free camera mode enhances the player's experience by allowing detailed observation of the surroundings and enabling the capture of high-resolution screenshots. This feature is appreciated for showcasing the game's visuals and environment.

Common complaints:
- Shallow, Repetitive Gameplay Loop (weight 0.93): Players consistently find the game's core gameplay loop, missions, and overall content highly repetitive and lacking in variety after only a few hours. This leads to quick boredom, a feeling of endless grind, and a perception that the game is overpriced for the limited depth and content it offers, especially compared to similar titles. The minimal differences between seasons and campaigns further exacerbate the feeling of repetition.
- Frequent Game Crashes & Bugs (weight 0.87): The game suffers from pervasive and frequent crashes, particularly at the end of missions, causing significant loss of progress. Players also report various other bugs, performance issues like frame drops, and poor optimization, making the game frustrating and often unplayable due to persistent issues since launch.
- Stagnant AI & Combat (weight 0.28): The enemy AI behavior is a significant drawback, often leading to combat scenarios where both player and enemy vehicles come to a stop or move very slowly while shooting. This 'shooting in the back' mechanic, combined with enemies designed to stay behind the player, makes combat feel unengaging, exploitable, and boring.
- Passive 'Hands-Off' Gameplay (weight 0.16): Many players express disappointment that the game feels more like a clicker or stat manager than an active vehicular combat game, as the car largely drives itself. This reduces real-time racing thrills and active driving, limiting player interaction to target selection, lane changes, and occasional boosts.
- Ineffective Tutorials & Onboarding (weight 0.1): The in-game tutorials are described as lengthy, text-heavy, and ineffective at teaching core mechanics. Furthermore, key game elements like interesting characters and perks are locked behind a long, uninteresting early game, hindering initial player engagement and understanding.
- Excessive Grind Achievements (weight 0.08): The game features extremely grindy achievements (e.g., completing/failing 1,000 seasons) that require thousands of hours to unlock. This is seen as unreasonable and abusive for a repetitive single-player game with limited content, making the pursuit of 100% completion feel like a chore rather than fun.
- Limited Customization & Buggy Systems (weight 0.08): Car customization options are limited, and the system frequently resets upgrades. Additionally, critical systems like the car rescue or flip mechanism are glitchy, costing money and often failing to resolve issues, forcing mission restarts and penalizing players.
- Unstable Vehicle Physics (weight 0.08): The game suffers from odd and unstable physics interactions, frequently causing the player's car to flip over after minor collisions. This leads to frustration, especially when the game charges money for a buggy 'flip car' function that often doesn't work correctly.
- Subpar Graphics & Optimization (weight 0.08): The game's graphics are considered barely passable for its release year, with some strange visual aspects (e.g., appearing bad without Anti-Aliasing). Lowering quality settings doesn't alleviate performance strain, indicating poor optimization despite the sparse visuals.
- Lacks Controller Support (weight 0.06): Players desiring a more traditional 'car-shooter' experience lament the absence of controller support. This limits accessibility and preferred input methods for a game that involves vehicles, making it less comfortable for some players.
- Difficult Multi-Car Management (weight 0.05): Managing multiple cars (like an escort or wingman) is cumbersome and often problematic. The inability of secondary vehicles to independently attack or choose lanes turns them into micromanagement burdens or simple bullet sponges, detracting from the experience.

Gameplay feedback:
- Real-time tactical car combat (weight 0.55): The core gameplay blends real-time vehicular combat on a 4-lane highway with tactical decision-making. Players can activate 'command mode' or 'bullet time' to slow down time and issue precise orders for lane changes, weapon usage, and ability activation, while the car mostly auto-drives. This emphasizes strategic thinking over pure driving skills.
- Roguelike campaign progression (weight 0.33): The game is structured as a roguelike, featuring multiple 'seasons' or short campaigns, each tied to a unique character and vehicle with specific abilities. Progression involves managing fuel and resources, acquiring upgrades, and facing permadeath, though some perks can grant a second chance. Campaigns typically last 2-3 hours and unlock new cars and items.
- Varied yet repetitive missions (weight 0.21): Missions offer a range of objectives including combat, escorts, destruction, and block-post breaches, sometimes incorporating 'mutators' for added complexity. While there is a 'decent amount' of mission types, some players felt that repeating a limited set of missions became repetitive. Missions are generally tough and short, typically lasting 10-15 minutes.
- Limited vehicle customization (weight 0.11): Players can customize their vehicles with armor and a selection of weapons for three distinct slots (front, rear, turret), each with cooldowns. Resource management also involves upgrading engine capacity for heavier gear. However, some feedback indicated that customization options beyond basic performance and weapon changes lacked intricate or amusing aesthetic choices.
- Draws on niche inspirations (weight 0.06): The game's design and setting are heavily influenced by niche sources, including the 'Dark Future' Games Workshop board game, classic roguelikes like Faster Than Light (FTL) and Convoy, and the post-apocalyptic aesthetic of titles like Fallout and Mad Max.
- AI prioritizes flanking maneuvers (weight 0.04): The enemy AI is programmed to actively try and position itself behind the player's vehicle during combat encounters. This tactical behavior adds a specific challenge, as being flanked can expose weaker armor or allow enemies to use advantageous weapon positions.

Performance notes:
- Significant performance issues present (weight 0.14): Multiple players reported experiencing poor game performance, stuttering, and difficulty running the game smoothly, even on high-end hardware like a 3080. This indicates a widespread need for optimization as the issues are not isolated to specific hardware configurations.
- Achievement unlocks require restart (weight 0.03): Steam achievements are tracked in-game but do not automatically unlock; instead, they require the player to restart the game to register. This highlights a specific bug in the achievement unlocking system.
- Uses Unreal Engine 4 (weight 0.02): The game's development utilizes Unreal Engine 4. This is a factual observation from player feedback rather than an actionable point about gameplay or issues, based on limited and weak feedback.

Recommendations:
- Appeals to Niche Audiences (weight 0.45): The game resonates strongly with specific groups, particularly fans of roguelikes, car combat games, and titles inspired by the Mad Max universe or tabletop games like Car Wars and Dark Future. Its blend of tactical decisions and action is appreciated within these niche communities.
- Overpriced, Buy Only on Sale (weight 0.44): Player feedback consistently suggests the game is not worth its full price due to its current state and content limitations. A strong consensus indicates that it becomes a worthwhile purchase only when offered at a significant discount, often 85-90% off or as part of a low-cost bundle.
- Concept Good, Execution Lacking (weight 0.41): While the game's core concept and visuals are often praised, its overall implementation frequently falls short of expectations. Players note that the game has much potential but ultimately disappoints due to various shortcomings beyond just technical issues, leading to conditional recommendations.
- Frequent Game-Breaking Crashes (weight 0.4): Many players report severe technical instability, including frequent game crashes, lost progress, and save corruption. These issues significantly hinder the gameplay experience and are a primary reason for low recommendations, despite some players finding the game otherwise enjoyable.
- Some Players Find Enjoyment (weight 0.14): Despite the significant criticisms regarding technical issues and price, a segment of players genuinely enjoys the game, sometimes noting it's 'playable as is' or finding specific aspects like its driving mechanics accessible. This positive sentiment is often qualified by an acknowledgment of the game's flaws.

Other player notes:
- Mixed value and unmet expectations. (weight 0.22): Many players acquired the game on sale or via bundles, expressing that they wouldn't pay full price and would have sought refunds if they hadn't played too long. Initial impressions are often lukewarm, with some feeling the game looks better in screenshots than in reality and wishing for a more "fleshed out" experience to justify its existence as a modern vehicle combat title.
- Frequent game crashes occur. (weight 0.21): Many players report common crashing issues, particularly when starting or exiting missions. While the game's save system often mitigates lost progress by saving between missions, the recurring crashes significantly frustrate players and detract from the overall experience. This is a critical technical flaw.
- Gameplay becomes repetitive. (weight 0.2): Players find the core gameplay loop becomes "samey" over time, leading to a lack of long-term engagement. There's a strong desire for more varied road designs, strategic depth, diverse character progression, and vehicle customization options to keep the experience fresh and engaging.
- Tabletop license underutilized. (weight 0.17): The game is an adaptation of an 80s Games Workshop tabletop game, leading to specific expectations from fans. However, some players question its Warhammer affiliation and suggest the game might have been better off as a generic "Mad Max-esque" shooter without the licensing constraints, allowing for more creative freedom.
- Poor long-term player engagement. (weight 0.08): Achievement statistics reveal low completion rates for tutorials and long-term goals, indicating that many players struggle with initial onboarding or quickly lose interest in sustained play. While some embrace failed runs as a rogue-lite mechanic, the overall picture suggests a challenge in retaining players for extended periods.
- Lore delivery needs improvement. (weight 0.06): While the game's lore is noted for reflecting real-world issues, its delivery primarily through emails after runs can feel monotonous. Despite a known writer, the narrative presentation might not fully engage players, who expected more from the storyline.
- Specific positive gameplay moments. (weight 0.05): Some players highlight enjoyable aspects like specific combat locations (e.g., sandstorms, overpasses for ramming) or positive actions like buying the soundtrack as a thank you. These indicate pockets of enjoyment despite overarching issues, though they are not widespread.

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.25): Players frequently experience frustration due to persistent technical issues such as game crashes, game-breaking bugs, and poor optimization, often leading to lost progress. Clunky controls, questionable mission balance, ineffective enemy and escort AI, and chaotic physics further contribute to a challenging and often unfair gameplay experience.
- Disappointment (weight 0.23): Disappointment stems from the game's unfulfilled potential, with many feeling it failed to deliver on its interesting concept due to poor implementation, lack of content, and repetitive gameplay. Critical bugs, instability, poor optimization, and a perceived lack of developer fixes further diminish enjoyment and lead to an overall negative experience.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.18): Players find satisfaction in the game's unique arcadey gameplay, strategic decision-making facilitated by slow-motion mechanics, and engaging car combat. Positive aspects also include good visuals, a compelling soundtrack, rewarding progression, and the game's successful adaptation of tabletop elements.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.08): Enjoyment is derived from the game's refreshing playstyle, cool concepts, and engaging lore, particularly its Warhammer 40k references and charming alternative timeline. Players appreciate the tactical depth of bullet time mechanics, explosive combat, and the overall fun and unique gameplay experience.
- Boredom (weight 0.08): Boredom arises from monotonous and repetitive gameplay, with players quickly exhausting the limited content and mission variety. The unengaging combat and lack of progression or player agency contribute to the game feeling stale after short periods of play.
- Excitement (weight 0.07): Excitement is generated by the game's engaging vehicular battles, strategic slow-motion decision-making, and the thrill of pulling off devastating combos. The unique gameplay, fantastic bullet-time effects, and successful adaptation of a beloved board game concept contribute to an instantly hooked feeling and anticipation for more.
- Confusion (weight 0.02): Confusion arises from the game's unclear identity, particularly its connection to the Warhammer series, and certain design choices. Players also express confusion regarding real-time gameplay mechanics and the strange visual behavior of AI cars.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy reflects an overall strong positive experience with the game, stemming from enjoyment of its mechanics and customization options. For some, it includes the delight of rediscovering the ability to play a driving game, fostering a deep appreciation for the experience.
- Mixed feelings (weight 0.01): Players report mixed feelings when initial interest in game mechanics and good visuals are overshadowed by later disappointment in repetitiveness and a lack of long-term engagement. Positive aspects of combat and flow are balanced by specific design or technical disappointments, preventing a wholly positive or negative stance.
- Mild frustration (weight 0.01): Mild frustration is experienced due to occasional crashes, particularly at the end of missions, which can disrupt gameplay without significant progress loss. Limited car customization options and physics issues like cars flipping also contribute to minor annoyances.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.01): Nostalgia is triggered by the game evoking fond memories of past gaming experiences or a specific era, such as 80s sci-fi movies. This connection to personal history and cultural references enhances the player's emotional experience.
- Admiration (weight 0): Admiration is expressed for the game's rich lore, political satire, and its unique blend of mechanical elements. Players appreciate the depth and creativity in the game's world-building and design.
- Minor annoyance (weight 0): Minor annoyance is caused by semi-frequent crashes and various small bugs that, while not game-breaking, detract from the smooth gameplay experience. These issues create small disruptions without leading to significant frustration or disappointment.
- Mild disappointment (weight 0): Mild disappointment arises from the omission of expected features and a slight repetitiveness in gameplay. These factors, while not severely impacting enjoyment, prevent the game from reaching its full potential in the player's eyes.
- Annoyance (weight 0): Annoyance is caused by vague information regarding weapons and gameplay, making it difficult for players to make informed decisions. Additionally, tedious gameplay elements contribute to a feeling of being bothered by the game's design.
- Anger (weight 0): Anger stems from the game's severely broken state, specifically constant and critical crashing issues that render the game unplayable. This signifies a complete breakdown of the game's functionality, leading to intense player frustration.
- Amusement (weight 0): Amusement is derived from the game's silly writing and jokes, particularly instances like a Twitter-obsessed bandit queen. These humorous elements provide lighthearted moments and enhance the overall entertainment value.
- Gratitude (weight 0): Gratitude is expressed for the game's accessibility features, which allow individuals with neurological disorders or other limitations to enjoy the game. This highlights the positive impact of inclusive design choices on player experience.}