Derelikt, the sci-fi horror shooter built to look like a lost late-90s PlayStation game, has a PS5 release date: November 13.
The date comes from the PlayStation Blog, in a post by Philipp Jensen, Derelikt's creator and art director at developer Visuwyg. Jensen also says PS5 pre-orders are open now with a 10% discount ahead of release.
PS5 date moved up
That's quicker than first planned. When the release date was announced in October, Gematsu reported that publisher Hyperstrange and developer Visuwyg would launch Derelikt for PC via Steam on November 13, followed by PS5 and Xbox Series at a later date. The PlayStation Blog now puts the PS5 version on November 13 too, the same day Gematsu reported for PC, although the blog post itself doesn't mention the PC release.
Xbox is the open question. The PlayStation Blog post covers PS5 only, so an Xbox Series date hasn't been confirmed alongside it.
What Derelikt is
Jensen's pitch on the PlayStation Blog is simple: make it look as though Derelikt was found on a CD-R in the storage unit of a defunct late-90s developer and ported to modern platforms.
The setting is Von Neumann Outpost, built onto an anomalous asteroid in Saturn's orbit. You play an outside contractor sent to find out what happened to Excavation Team Delta, who went missing on the derelict surface. The survivors you meet don't tell the same story, and a mysterious drone is pushing everyone towards breaking point.
According to Jensen, you start with traditional weapons and can find outlandish weapon prototypes and alien weapons as you progress. Over a dozen characters each have their own secrets and agendas. Resource management, exploration, dialogue and old-school puzzle solving are meant to be as central as the gunplay.
Gematsu's write-up lists System Shock 2, Alien Resurrection and DOOM 3 as the inspirations, and describes a game where ammo, health and inventory space all matter.
The retro tech is the hook
This is where Derelikt gets nerdy in a good way. Jensen writes that the game uses 100% hand-painted textures and vertex colour lighting. Affine texture warping, the wobbly-texture look of the era, was put in on purpose and then reined in by dynamically subdividing the geometry, which Jensen says is what the most high-end games of the time did. There are retro-style full-motion CGI cutscenes too.
The practical bit for anyone who finds that wobble hard to look at: Jensen says there's an option to toggle the effects on or off to suit your taste.
According to the post, the game has been in development in some form since late 2021. Jensen's line on the whole approach is that "retro doesn't have to mean crude and primitive."
Jax's take: The effects toggle is the detail worth noticing. Plenty of retro-styled games pick one look and lock you in, and the wobble that makes this style charming for one player gives another a headache. Letting people dial it to taste is a small, sensible choice, and it should make Derelikt easier to recommend to horror fans who don't have fond memories of PSOne-era textures. Getting PS5 on day one alongside PC doesn't hurt, either.
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