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Director Francis Ford Coppola promised to make a video game version of his award-winning film Apocalypse Now by upcoming studio American Zoetrope.
According to the crowdfunding page, the game will be a immersive, psychedelic horror RPG, in which players will take on the roll of Captain Benjamin Williard as he heads into the wilds of Vietnam looking for Colonel Kurtz and his missing troops. The game won’t follow the story of Apocalypse Now about Williard’s odyssey through the jungle to the letter, but instead, the development team will try to create their own spin from things in an alternative retelling of the famous tale.
While the words “alternative retelling” may send shivers down the spines of some Apocalypse Now fans, just by looking at the names working on the game should raise hopes and perhaps even a few eyebrows. Writer of Gears of War, Rob Auten is on board, as well as Pillars of Eternity director Josh Sawyer, and Lawrence Liberty, who was an executive producer on The Witcher. On top of that, Montgomery Markland is also on the list, whose success in launching Wasteland 2 on the crowdfunding platform should give the new game some serious Kickstarter credibility.
It appears that the American Zoetrope team will be a good fit to bring the story of Apocalypse Now – with all its shades of gray – to the new medium. Judging by the game’s concept art, it looks like Apocalypse Now will be a dark game and will likely demand an even higher toll from its players than Spec Ops: The Line did, as they make their way through the Vietnamese mud, making yet another hard decision with each new step they take.
These gameplay elements as well as the team behind American Zoetrope should give some flicker of hope to fans of Apocalypse Now. The fact that it won’t be a faithful retelling of the classic film allows some of the most creative minds in modern gaming to experiment a lot with the story of how Williard goes slowly mad while searching for Colonel Kurtz.
The release date of Apocalypse Now is currently unknown.
