Look, that rabbit’s got a vicious streak a mile wide
Developer Nitroplus, Chime Corporation Publisher Format NetEase PC, PS5 Origin Japan Release 2024
When considering which creatures are most likely to inherit a postapocalyptic Earth, the humble rabbit isn’t exactly the first to spring to mind – though perhaps their insatiable reproductive habits have given them an edge in terms of sheer numbers. Either way, when Nitroplus’s game is first revealed to us alongside its protagonist, a gruff middle-aged rabbit called Stamp that pilots a robot known as Junkster, our first question to creator Gen Urobuchi is: why rabbits? And what compelled the writer, perhaps best known for magical girl series Madoka Magica, cyberpunk thriller Psycho-Pass, and light novel Fate/ Zero, to develop an action game?
Urobuchi is only too pleased to share with us the original inspiration, holding out his phone on which we see an image of a rabbit and a robot he first discovered via Twitter (the artist responsible goes by @Almighty0404). “That picture is from about eight years ago, and I had it set as my wallpaper for a long time,” Urobuchi explains, evidently tickled by the juxtaposition of the cute with the hard-boiled. “After I kept looking at it, I was like, I want to make a story about this character.” Again going off-script, Urobuchi reveals that while he is professionally a scenario writer, he also dabbles in making games in Unity as a hobby. Taking out his laptop to show us a 2D game featuring a rabbit in a mech, we can see in its rough edges how it grew from a leisure-time pursuit to the much slicker presentation we’re here for.
At this point, our handler defers us to the game’s producer, Yuichiro Saito, to walk us through Rusty Rabbit’s overall game loop. While it uses 3D visuals – with fuzzy fur textures you want to reach out and run your fingers through – the premise is similar to that of SteamWorld Dig. At its core, this is a side-scrolling action game in which you descend into perilous ruins; you’ll face tougher adversaries the deeper you go, but also acquire all manner of junk that can be used to upgrade the robot suit you’re piloting.
If it’s a Metroidvania at heart, Rusty Rabbit also has the ingredients of a Roguelike
In the build we’re shown, Stamp and his mech have already unlocked the full suite of upgrades, from hookshots to boost jumps, to better showcase the range of tools at your disposal. Naturally, these are accrued more gradually in the full game, after “Junkster gets into an accident and becomes broken, which is why it [initially] has zero functions,” Saito explains. The archetypical Metroid setup, in other words, and w
