ILL - First Look Trailer | Summer Game Fest 2025

GymWolf said:
Sound very ambitious, please don't be vaporware:


"There are four founders of Team Clout," ILL's game director and studio co-founder Max Verehin says. "We had an idea to make a brutal horror game with physics and decided to make a few videos that could represent our vision. It was a really small development to begin with. The road was bumpy. There were a lot of issues with location, team, and stuff like that.

"And then we sat and thought 'hey, we should really start developing seriously, full time.' In summer 2023 we got together with Mundfish Powerhouse, and that was the moment when actual serious production started. We built the team. We finished the playable internal demo."

You might recognize that name Mundfish – it's the studio that developed Atomic Heart. Powerhouse is a spin-off, boutique label built to find, publish, and co-create, in the studio's own words, the "next generation of standout games". With Powerhouse's backing, Team Clout has been able to grow into a studio of some 50 full-time developers and work on ILL in earnest. No longer the stuff of concept videos, everything that we've seen since 2023 has been captured in game.

"ILL is something that all four founders wanted to play in the future," Verehin continues. "We're inspired a bit by Half-Life 2, specifically the pacing, and how the story is told. It's that feeling that the whole journey is in front of you, that you start here and you need to get there. And that feeling that the world is alive. We're trying to bring a piece of that into our game. We're also pushing the physics-based elements. This could just be stuff in the levels – objects, breakable stuff. When you enter a room in ILL and there's a fight, after the fight, you'll see the room has changed because stuff isn't glued to the floor.

"We're also trying to push physics with enemies as well. I'm not saying our enemies are going to be procedural, but we are pushing the feeling. When you shoot an enemy, you feel that it's physics based, even though we're using some cheat codes and it's partly animated. You shoot an enemy, he falls, hits another enemy, and they react."

"Gore is really important," Verehin explains. "Maybe you remember Soldier of Fortune, where when you killed an enemy, you just wanted to see how the gore would work. We want players to be excited to explore this system. It's about how the enemy reacts to being hit – we want you to be able to see how the enemy's behavior changes if you shoot off their body parts. In one of the trailers, you might remember there's an enemy who loses its hand and then looks down to look at where its hand should be. This is part of our gore.

"But it's not just about the visuals. We also want you to feel the sound. If you shoot a revolver in a corridor, you'll feel like it's in a corridor. The sound of the shot itself is brutal and impactful. And our enemies are not regular zombie-like monsters. They do really sadistic stuff. This dismemberment system will change them, too. If they lose a limb, another enemy can be born from that limb."
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HL2 inspired story 🔥
 
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If it actually looks like that and plays well then it's a game changer, other devs better take note. Will keep my eye on this, hopefully it delivers and doesn't end up being vaporware.
 
rofif said:
so this is a real game afterall?
It was just an animation years ago and dev threw a tantrum at me when I told him he is bulshitting... like 5 years ago lol
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That's why you should keep your shitposting to GAF, this forum knows how you roll and can handle it. Don't harass poor devs outside this forum. And throw away that used coke bottle in your room ffs
 
I remember being very hyped for this but forgot about it after awhile so really glad to see it back to the spotlight. Looks very high quality and fun. Definitely very interested in this one after RE9.
 
Im watching the video again. Its so impressive but is it real? Is it possible this generation this visuals? I still doubt its real time.
 
yogaflame said:
Im watching the video again. Its so impressive but is it real? Is it possible this generation this visuals? I still doubt its real time.
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Yeah, hard to believe. Looks straight out of a movie. From animations to physics. Insane if real.
 
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Technically you could have multiple weapon sway animations instead of just 1 or 2 like most first person shooters, but I think a lot of devs don't bother due to costs and redundancy.

Or maybe the weapon swaying in ILL is physics-based?

I think Killzone 2/3 had the best looking weapon swaying/recoil animations I've seen in a first person shooter until this game.

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However, even in KZ the gun mostly stayed locked to the bottom corners outside of reloading. ILL seems to use either 2/3 of the bottom or the entire bottom of the player's view for potential movement.
 
If this were the first time we were seeing it, I'd be on team fake like I was when I first saw it. Buts it's been a thing for a long time now and you'd think Geoff would curate what is presented in some way to not face embarrassment or backlash.
 
DavidGzz said:
If this were the first time we were seeing it, I'd be on team fake like I was when I first saw it. Buts it's been a thing for a long time now and you'd think Geoff would curate what is presented in some way to not face embarrassment or backlash.
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He does curate it for the most part, as he constantly says before announcing a game 'The team at _____ showed me what they were working on and I couldn't wait to reveal it to you guys' so these devs are showing him in-game/in-engine footage in advance.

It even sounded like he had someone to vet the Puppet Boxing Game (which to me personally looks even better than ILL) as in-engine on Unreal.

What he should have done for ILL is have one of the devs explain the game a little bit more in a 15-30 second clip after the trailer, or maybe Geoff explains it himself.
 
DavidGzz said:
Yeah, hard to believe. Looks straight out of a movie. From animations to physics. Insane if real.
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Ill be happy if at least 90% of that quality appears in the final product. But to be honest I want it to really look like that on ps5. But anyway it look like a fun game so i will buy it.n
 
This is the first time I ever seen this game. It's hard to believe this will be the final product. I hope they are able to deliver.
 
HerjansEagleFeeder said:
That's why you should keep your shitposting to GAF, this forum knows how you roll and can handle it. Don't harass poor devs outside this forum. And throw away that used coke bottle in your room ffs
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He was clearly faking it years ago bruh. He was posting his short horror animations and pretending it's gameplay. It was just a short animation
 
He said the magic words "Soldier of Fortune@. This was my game and first FPS multiplayer experience and the visceral nature and the best undisputed shotgun is still unmatched to this very day. Now, my hype levels are on the roof!
 
GymWolf said:
Callisto gore is pretty shit, not even worth a mention, dead space was infinitely better gore tech wise.

Dead island 2 Is current king but ill look even better.
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Hahahha pretty shit, not even worth a mention hahah and to say dead space has better gore....you really need to revisit Calisto Protocol, Buddy! :)
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Trouble with using the physics-based approach is that for every time it looks amazing there are plenty of others when it looks less convincing, or even glitchy.

Its a method, not a result, and therefore always prone to producing unpredictable effects when the input is randomized by situational limitations and player actions. Its why canned/pre-baked animations tend to be used instead of all-realtime calculation. This in turn increases memory requirements and leads to other knock-on effects.

Given the dev's background in visual arts I'd suspect they'll go with the latter approach, because the goal is to make things look "right". But that may come at the cost of other limitations.

Impressive as it is, I'd wait and see some proper extended gameplay footage before getting too excited. Its not really a technical problem to do what they are showing, however it does take a lot of "stage management" to make it look as good as it does, and that's unlikely to be practical over the duration of a game.
 
This level of smoothness from nobody? Sorry but you must be delusional to think that its not just a target demo that will look completely different when (but more like if) it will release. I will eat crow if i will be proven wrong but it won't happen. We really should be more sceptical after bullshit like The Day Before.
 
OneBigPuss said:
This level of smoothness from nobody? Sorry but you must be delusional to think that its not just a target demo that will look completely different when (but more like if) it will release. I will eat crow if i will be proven wrong but it won't happen. We really should be more sceptical after bullshit like The Day Before.
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When will you guys learn that great things can come from said "nobodies". You rather have your Bethesda and Bioware and recycled From Software shit?

I think Wukong and Expedition 33 have proven you don't need a super profile pedigree to deliver the goods.
 
OneBigPuss said:
This level of smoothness from nobody? Sorry but you must be delusional to think that its not just a target demo that will look completely different when (but more like if) it will release. I will eat crow if i will be proven wrong but it won't happen. We really should be more sceptical after bullshit like The Day Before.
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BM Wukong, Atomic Heart, Phantom blade 0 and Clair obscur all say hi.

The day before ? man, you really went with the worst example out there as to prove your point, not all companies are scam artists.
 
VeganElduderino said:
Hahahha pretty shit, not even worth a mention hahah and to say dead space has better gore....you really need to revisit Calisto Protocol, Buddy! :)
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Yeah yeah some nice finishers and some exploding heads in cutscenes like a shitload of other games with gore, mk has done that shit for a decade now, call me when the game is gonna also have a multy-layered skin gore system where yuo can literally strip the skin and muscles out of your enemies then we can talk





I think you can notice a certain difference...

The high fidelity and camera work in callisto make it look more impressive than it really is, but if we talk about pure TECH, it's way behind stuff like di2 or ds remake or even stuff like half sword that has lower fidelity but the gore influcence the gameplay and the dynamic animations and it's completely dynamic and not precanned like callisto.
 
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Hahahah pretty shit
GymWolf said:
Yeah yeah some nice finishers and some exploding heads like a shitload of other games with gore, mk has done that shit for a decade now, call me when the game is gonna also have a multy-layered skin gore system then we can talk




The high fidelity and camera work in callisto make it look more impressive than it really is, but if we talk about pure TECH, it's way behind stuff like di2 or ds remake or even stuff like half sword that has lower fidelity but the gore influcence the gameplay and the dynamic animations and it's completely dynamic and not precanned like callisto.
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Still, there's great gore in Calisto...
I must of taken more gory screenshots than any other horror games evar!
I can only imagine what they could of done with a sequel...
 
VeganElduderino said:
Hahahah pretty shit

Still, there's great gore in Calisto...
I must of taken more gory screenshots than any other horror games evar!
I can only imagine what they could of done with a sequel...
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I gave you that calling it pretty shit was harsh on my part (i always exagerate a bit to make a point), the high fidelity really help selling the package but you can imagine how i was expecting much more from the creator of dead space.

If you don't care about high fidelity, animations and damage system glitching or looking silly half of the times, you should really try the free demo of half sword on steam, lower the settings because it's a bitch to run, the devs are trying to make their own simil-euphoria animation system and proprietary gore system so it's entirely animation driven, it's rough but already pretty incredible for an indie developer (it's technically not even an early access, the devs just put out the game even before entering ea so expect crashes and shit if you don't have a great pc)

Look some high skill footage on yt and don't play the gauntlet mode, play the free mode until you are decent with multiple weapons, and obviously play with full gore (and lower the volume, the audio design is even more gritty than tlou2)

If you wanna play with a controller, send me a pm.
 
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GymWolf said:
I gave you that calling it pretty shit was harsh on my part (i always exagerate a bit to make a point), the high fidelity really help selling the package but you can imagine how i was expecting much more from the creator of dead space.
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I'm sure a sequel would of fixed some of the game's problems...but I liked it! It was a good foundation, I did get it on ps5 and on steam after all!
Oh well I guess we'll never know .
 
They know that the game's authenticity has been in question since the day they announced it, a playable demo after SGF would be great for the game's reputation, but they missed the opportunity.
 
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cripterion said:
When will you guys learn that great things can come from said "nobodies". You rather have your Bethesda and Bioware and recycled From Software shit?

I think Wukong and Expedition 33 have proven you don't need a super profile pedigree to deliver the goods.
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Im not saying that great things can't come from "nobodys" and wrong target because im more into indie titles than AAA slop. Im saying that if something looks too good you should question it not consume it without question. Wukong and Expedition looks great but animations from Ill are on another level.
 
Giallo Corsa said:
BM Wukong, Atomic Heart, Phantom blade 0 and Clair obscur all say hi.

The day before ? man, you really went with the worst example out there as to prove your point, not all companies are scam artists.
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All of those games looked possible when it comes to graphics, Ill not so much. The day before is a good example because "gameplay" trailers felt strange too.
 
OneBigPuss said:
All of those games looked possible when it comes to graphics, Ill not so much. The day before is a good example because "gameplay" trailers felt strange too.
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I completely disagree - plenty of people were calling out those games as fake or a scam from the start, comments like "this looks like bullshit," "just a tech demo," or "CHY-NA/RUZZIA scam LMAO" were everywhere, maybe you don't remember but people absolutely tore them apart for obvious reasons: they looked "too good to be true" and were being developed by unknown (then) studios.

Latest ones being Crimson Desert and Phantom blade 0, and yet...😉

I think people will get blown away by Crimson Desert and PB0 will also sell like hotcakes (especially after the playable demo shown a few months back).
 
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Giallo Corsa said:
I completely disagree - plenty of people were calling out those games as fake or a scam from the start, comments like "this looks like bullshit," "just a tech demo," or "CHY-NA/RUZZIA scam LMAO" were everywhere, maybe you don't remember but people absolutely tore them apart for obvious reasons: they looked "too good to be true" and were being developed by unknown (then) studios.

Latest ones being Crimson Desert and Phantom blade 0, and yet...😉

I think people will get blown away by Crimson Desert and PB0 will also sell like hotcakes (especially after the playable demo shown a few months back).
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Don't get me wrong i would love for Ill to look like that and overall tone is right up my alley. Let's hope they can release it in two years tops.
 
I remember that old video. I commented about how there were certain unique things happening that I still haven't seen anywhere else. One of the moments is when the first 2 ILLs come out of the room, the first ILL get's shot and ILL #2 watches it fall down. Maybe this happens in another game, but I've never noticed it. Other game's enemies never break their eye focus off of you.

I love the new video.


Just found this 5 month old video. Has some behind the scenes stuff at the end.

 
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Musilla said:
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Looking at these gifs it just looks too staged. Especially the camera turning first and then the weapon lagging behind a bit. But also stuff like that zombie picking up a weapon. You can let your imagination run wild ofcourse about what this game could be, but I'm always very skeptical about this stuff. Certainly looks cool though
 
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Ribi said:
Any word on what the mundfish fork of ue does better?
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Is it confirmed they are using a different fork of Unreal outside of Epics or Nvidias?
Id think they have a gore system plugin but I cant imagine theyve got a completely separate fork of UE.


OneBigPuss said:
All of those games looked possible when it comes to graphics, Ill not so much. The day before is a good example because "gameplay" trailers felt strange too.
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Some of the early footage of ILL was baked stuff.....it wasnt actually a game you can see in the behind the scenes video these are canned animations
This new trailer which looks like gameplay doesnt seem so far out the realm of possibility, they clearly have talented animators from seeing their baked stuff, it wouldnt be too hard to translate that to Unreal Engine.......the question is whether this is being played "live" or they piped in stuff and just hit render in Unreal.

Cautiously optomisitic that this is actually a real game.



P.S Remember that police bodycam like footage game Unrecord?


Well someone beat them to the punch with a playable early access game.






If you just saw footage of these games you might also be thinking this isnt real, but me thinks Unrecord eventually does actually come out......so hopefully ILL comes out before someone steals their thunder and release theirs first.
 
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