About

Cruelty Squad is a 2021 surreal FPS video game by Consumer Softproducts, designed with an abrasive, retro PS1-esque low-poly style. The game was released in early access on Steam in January 2021, seeing a full release in June and gaining significant popularity that year, receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews for its gameplay and style.

History

Cruelty Squad consists of 19 open-world levels in which you must neutralize a number of given targets, similar to games like Hitman and Deus Ex. The game includes a dynamic stock market system where the player can trade fish and human organs for profit.

On January 4th, 2021, an early access version of the game was released, containing 13 levels. YouTubers soon began posting let's plays and previews of the game. Notably, on February 20th, YouTuber Charlatan Wonder posted a video playing the game, garnering over 60,000 views in five months (shown below, left). On March 13th, Justin Whang uploaded a video playing the game, garnering over 57,000 views in four months (shown below, right).

Cruelty Squad was previewed in the first issue of independent video game magazine "Funland,"^[3] released on April 29th, 2021, which featured an interview with the game's creator Ville Kallio. In the interview, Kallio discusses his past as a comic book artist, but describes feeling unfulfilled with it. He was inspired to start Cruelty Squad after learning 3D low-poly modelling

On June 4th, Consumer Softproducts uploaded a trailer of Cruelty Squad to YouTube,^[2] gaining over 42,000 views in a month (shown below).

On June 16th, the full version of Cruelty Squad was released on Steam.^[1]

On July 24th, the Consumer Softproducts Twitter^[4] page announced that the game had sold over 40,000 units using a Feels Good meme, garnering over 3,600 likes in four days (shown below).

On July 26th, VideoGameDunkey posted a video showcasing the game, garnering over a million views in two days (shown below).

Online Presence

Cruelty Squad saw a significant increase in popularity following its full release and an outpouring of videos covering it. This inspired a number of pieces of fan art and memes referencing the game (examples shown below, left and right).

Reception

On July 2nd, 2021, PC Gamer^[5] game Cruelty Squad a 93% score. On July 4th, YouTuber GmanLives posted a video reviewing the game highly as a masterpiece, garnering over 190,000 views in three weeks (shown below).

On July 5th, NME^[6] gave the game a perfect score. On July 28th, Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw of Zero Punctuation reviewed the game positively for Escapist Magazine.^[7]

Search Interest

External References