Painkiller dev reveals Dreamkiller

By Robert Purchese Published 30 June, 2009

Psychiatric shooter for PC, 360.

Aspyr Media has unveiled PC and Xbox 360 first-person shooter Dreamkiller.

Due this autumn, the game will be made by Czech studio Mindware, which also made Painkiller: Overdose.

Dreamkiller sounds interesting. Psychiatrist Alice Drake is the heroine, and she can enter the "dark and twisted nightmare" world imagined by her patients. Once there, she finds a hectic "mega-bloodbath", which she'll need her bonkers arsenal and supernatural powers to overcome. All in the name of the patient's mental health, of course.

The first screenshots show a mini-gun and flamethrower of intricate, steampunk design, as well as enemies wearing straitjackets and giant bear-trap masks. There are savage hounds with robotic legs and a requisite spider-human monstrosity, too.

We're promised 12 unique and varying levels, plus "numerous" multiplayer modes.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • john_silence #1 3 years ago

    How great to be the first in a long line to say "meh".

  • john_silence #2 3 years ago

    Damn - can't I also be the first one to mark myself down?

  • john_silence #3 3 years ago

    It's not by the Painkiller developers. It's by the guys who did the crappy expansion, Overdose. Not the same thing at all. This looks like one more entry in the long string of low-budget Russian FPS's that used to not even be released Europe-wide, such as Vivisector. It doesn't mean these guys couldn't do something good with the appropriate budget (the Vivisector guys did Cryostasis), but as it is I don't think Dreamkiller stands much of a chance.
    EDIT: exactly MrMarc!
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/09 @ 16:32

  • Waffleaber #4 3 years ago

    Now THAT'S psychiatry!

  • kangarootoo #5 3 years ago

    Serious Samantha?

  • wellzy4eva #6 3 years ago

    Damn, for a second I thought that referred to a new 'People Can Fly' game...

    I hate misleading headings on articles...

  • space_ace #7 3 years ago

    consistent naming. next: shooterkiller?

  • BillyBrush #8 3 years ago

    hey, it's a new game you'd not heard of yesterday...hardly awful news..

  • b00n #9 3 years ago

    Psychonauts meets FPS?

    too bad it's not the original dev.

  • Yodzilla #10 3 years ago

    whoops i commented on the gallery and not the article. basically Painkiller: Overdose was fucking horrible. why did Epic have to buy People Can Fly??

  • Baranga #11 3 years ago

    Because People Can Fly made the brilliant original, multiplayer maps for Gears PC and helped them port that game.

  • Malek86 #12 3 years ago

    Meh, Painkiller was boring. It was kinda like Serious Sam, but... it lacked something. I can't exactly point my finger on it. Maybe it was that the enemies usually came in lower numbers and not always charging all together. It was a Serious Sam Lite, if you get what I mean. Sure enough, I didn't die nearly as many times.

  • DUFFKING #13 3 years ago

    Looks like the same engine too. Was nice at the time and performed surprisingly well on low end machines, but it just looks flat now.

  • the_mtfr #14 3 years ago

    No People-can-Fly, no true Painkiller game. This looks like really a small-minded design. Nothing to show in the shots except good textures/models.

  • Bulbatron #15 3 years ago

    I'd be more excited if Painkiller on the original Xbox hadn't gone AWOL. I'd been looking forwards to it and then it just disappeared. Did it come out in the US, because it didn't come out in the UK. Or if it did, I somehow missed it, and I was looking out for it. I even got the demo that came with the official Xbox magazine. But the game never turned up.

    Sorry, I'm rambling, I'm sure you get the point.

  • onyx_elite #16 3 years ago

    Overdose was the biggest pile of shit I ever did see. Loved Painkiller and the BOoH expansion, really decent no-brainer shooting but also entertaining at the same time. Overdose was nowhere near. This will suck balls and sink mostly without trace.

  • onyx_elite #17 3 years ago

    Also, Yodzilla, PCF didn't make Overdose. These Mindware clowns did. Do a bit more reading yeah?

  • Der_tolle_Emil #18 3 years ago

    I didn't like Overdose all that much but the original Painkiller was awesome. It was what Doom 3 should have been. This new game here certainly sounds interesting and I'm sure that the devs will keep the mainly negative criticism in mind and hopefully come up iwth an interesting FPS.

  • foadiron #19 2 years ago

    It's a pity this is coming out for consoles kiddies. The great thing about PK was that it was not dumbed down for console newbies (who can't play FPS on their machines anyway).