Yes, Big Robot is going to make a game featuring robots. It’s called Sir, You Are Being Hunted, and it taps into a rich seam of tweed-loving British science fiction to conjure a sinister reality where artificial gentlemen hunt humans for sport.

From a development point of view, Hunted is a stepping stone to what we want to do with our procedural-world generation project, Lodestone. The world-building tech for Lodestone is well developed, but actually we wanted to do so much with it that breaking down some of the tasks into entire spin-off games made sense. Hunted, therefore, is an experiment in the kind of intelligence required for robots to hunt each other – and you – in a dynamic open world.

Hunted is set in a recognisably British landscape. Its inhabitants are a mockery of the aristocratic country gent and his ecosystem. Robots that ape tea-drinking, poachers that lurk in reed-beds, and red-eyed hounds that patrol the moor: these are the things you will be dealing with as you fight for survival. The game gathers up elements of my favourite things: exploration, AI interaction, survival, robots, hot drinks, and blends them into a rich pixelly pulp. (A “British indie S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” might have been something we said in the design meetings…)

So that’s Hunted. You can expect tonnes of detailed information on this – videos, details about the release of it, and so on – in the coming days. We’re also going to update this blog with a load of details about how we’re making this game. Regular development diaries will become a feature, and we hope to give everyone an insight into the process we’re going through to get this lo-fi indie open-world shooter made.

More soon! But while you wait, have a browse of these pieces of concept art by the wonderfully talented Christophe Canon from Frogames.