PIGFACE is a filthy first-person shooter about brutally gunning down filthy people, or perhaps whacking them with blunt objects in such a way that makes you feel like Leatherface.
In PIGFACE, players take on the role of a blackmailed killer, forced into a slew of violent contracts across gritty brown-grey environments that feel like a backlot of places for the lost. The game itself is a deceptively simple shooter, made brilliant with immersive-sim elements and a sandbox approach that allows players to tackle contracts in their own way.
GoldenEye-esque objectives also help make PIGFACE more than just a run-and-gun affair. This, and the variety of weapons and customisation options that give players a bit of creative freedom.
But it’s all murder, and PIGFACE really lets you feel it.
PIGFACE is bloody; death here is blunt and cold. Developer, titolovesyou, took inspiration from films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and No Country For Old Men. Particularly when developing the game’s aesthetic. These influences are clearly apparent when it comes to the game’s intense and uncompromising violence.
It’s almost disturbing, a trait that PIGFACE narrowly avoids with its mysterious narrative and rag-dolling enemies. These additions provide just enough context and levity, respectively. What’s more, titolovesyou smartly chose to give the game a retro aesthetic that gives the violence a layer of abstraction. This gives PIGFACE a distinctive video-game feel that keeps realism at arm’s length.
That said, PIGFACE is still an unnervingly violent game that may offend some. But take PIGFACE’s cruelty away, and its grime, its disgusting nature, its thumping fleshy heart, goes with it. The game succeeds because the developer knows where its strengths lie, and has built the game around them.
This is particularly obvious when it comes to the developer’s choice of locations for the game’s various levels. Players can expect to roam around such wondrous places as a dingy, rundown Motel, an eerie train station in the middle of the night, or a simple but equally creepy farmhouse. No matter the location, though, players are sure to end up covered in a whole lot of blood.
