Paradise Lost is an upcoming alternative history, post-apocalyptic game where players take on the role of a 12 year old boy named Szymon, the Polish name for Simon. Paradise Lost will be published by All in! Games who brought players the breakout hit Ghostrunner. Set in 1980, players will uncover the truth of a mysterious Nazi bunker in the middle of the post-apocalyptic wasteland, but their actions will affect the overall outcome of the game. Most intriguing about Paradise Lost isn’t just the alternative telling of history, but rather its merging of Polish history and Slavic mythology together.
It combines both futuristic and retro technology with the nature that seems to inspire Slavic myth. After the death of his mother, Szymon is on the lookout for the man pictured next to his mother in a photo, hoping the bunker will hold some of the answers he seeks. Instead, the young boy stumbles upon something otherworldly and an even bigger mystery than that of the man in the photo. In an interview with Game Rant, two members of the Paradise Lost team, Bogdan Graczyk and Chris Panas-Galloway, talked about the inspiration behind the upcoming game.
From the gameplay preview Game Rant got to experience, Paradise Lost very much captures a bunker frozen in time. It’s desolate, but full of memories of those who used to be there. Szymon has to figure out where these people have gone, and who the mysterious woman Ewa (the Polish name for Eva) is. Different parts of the bunker are stylized differently: At first it may seem like nothing but a Nazi shelter, but the further Szymon goes, the more different aspects of the bunker are revealed. What he finds can also impact the history he discovers throughout his journey.
The Slavic mythology wasn’t really showcased in the gameplay preview, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in the game. In fact, many screencaps on Steam demonstrate the influence of Slavic mythology on the world created in the bunker. When asked about the Slavic mythology that inspired the game, Graczyk explained that what we know about Slavic mythology is already through the lens of Christianity. There was a lot of creative liberty the team was able to take with the Slavic influence on Paradise Lost.
“It meant that we could pick and choose which parts of the mythology we felt fit best to the story, and that really the themes of the gods supported the atmosphere that we were going for.”
Paradise Lost, from the looks of it, seems to combine a lush underground world with the modern technology of the present – at least, modern by 1980s standards. It’s also interesting that players are discovering these areas right alongside Szymon, rather than being thrown into a fantastical world that the player character is already familiar with.
All that’s really been shown so far in the previews is the “known” history, like the Nazi World War 2 bunker, alongside an unforgiving landscape and abandoned living quarters. The choices players make can lead to different outcomes and histories being perceived, and sometimes can even change the scenery of the game. These kinds of mechanics can definitely lead to a highly replayable and interesting gameplay experience.
“There are exclusive pathways that you can take, and we tried to construct those paths in a way that you have a generally very different context of what you just went through, based on the path that you take. So you can actually have a pretty different interpretation of the events or the characters and their decisions based on the choices that you make.”
As of now, Paradise Lost has an expected release window for sometime in 2021. Players can wishlist the game on Steam to keep up with it, and get even more updates about its release.
Paradise Lost is in development for PC.
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