Square Enix will be pulling the curtains back on a new game, codenamed Project CKP, via Twitch later today.
The news was hinted at to the public through a tweet on the official Square Enix Twitter account and via email on Friday. The tweet encouraged Squareā€™s fans to join them on the streaming service Twitch for “a unique 3-day interactive experience from one of our Western studios.”
The Twitch feed is currently live, streaming footage of a man trapped in a cell. Occasionally you can hear banging or what sounds like screams, and from time to time the man looks into the camera and asks for help, or is seen meditating or pacing around the room. By typing instructions into the chat pane on Twitter, you can order the feed to switch camera.
All we know so far is that the letters “CKP” in the codename stand for “Canā€™t Kill Progress”, but the publisher has been dropping clues into the Twitch livestream. Two URLs have been shown in a small on-screen text box, each of which leads to short distorted video files on Instagram:
Most of the speech is almost impossible to make out without the use of specialist software or equipment, but a few phrases are legible.
The first video seems to show two men, one wearing what appears to be a yellow hood. The phrases we could make out
“…You are hurting…”
“…Itā€™s not fair…”
In the second video, what looks like riot police appear to be rounding people up. In this video, the phrases “we donā€™t want you here” and “this is justice!” can be made out.
While itā€™s not an awful lot to go on, the videos combined with the twitch feed, and the codename “Canā€™t Kill Progress”, could be pointing to a game with authoritarian themes and a modern-day or near-future setting.
As youā€™d expect, thereā€™s already plenty of speculation about what it all means. We know that thereā€™s a new Hitman game in the works, and itā€™s quite likely that Square Enix will also want to continue the success enjoyed by Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but the tone of the videos doesnā€™t seem to fit with those franchises. So could this be a new franchise then? Weā€™ll have to wait until some time later today to discover what the publisher is working on.
While you wait to hear the announcement, take a look at the Twitch feed:
