We got a heads up last week that Deep Silver’s long lost 1960’s era biker game, Ride to Hell, might actually make it out of development hell when an achievement list was posted online. What we were not expecting was that the publisher had spent the last five years reworking the title into three separate games, none of which exactly match Ride to Hell‘s original concept.
Whether this is good or bad news remains to be seen, but we won’t have to wait long to find out as Deep Silver announced today that Ride to Hell: Retribution, Ride to Hell: Route 666, and Ride to Hell: Beatdown will all launch this June.
The game that appears to most closely resemble the original 2008 announcement is Ride to Hell: Retribution, which will be released on June 25, 2013 in North America (June 28th internationally) for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Ride to Hell as it was originally announced had you start the game as a Vietnam vet, turned 1960’s motorcycle club prospect, in an open-world setting. This newly announced revamp (developed by Eutechnyx) is still set in the 1960s, however, just about everything else has changed. In Retribution players will take on the role of Jake Conway as he sets out to get revenge on the “biker gang” The Devil’s Hand.
Deep Silver’s description of the game reads:
“Ride to Hell: Retribution tells the story of a lone rider, Jake Conway, a man with either a gun in his hand or a girl on his lap (and on more than one occasion both!). He’s on a merciless path of revenge against a brutal biker gang called The Devil’s Hand, armed to the teeth with an arsenal of deadly weapons to enact his vengeance on foot and on bike. The only law Jake answers to is his own.”
It is unclear if Retribution will still feature a free roaming environment, but the scope and story of the game has clearly been overhauled.
As part of the announcement, Deep Silver has also released a debut trailer for Ride to Hell: Retribution (embedded below). The trailer has a clear grindhouse style to it, which is hopefully an actual style choice and not an attempt to cover up the lackluster visuals and poor animation.
Also, everyone in the bar lines up and takes their turn to be murdered by Jake. So, yeah…
The second game, Ride to Hell: Route 666, is being developed by Black Forest Games and will launch digitally sometime in “June 2013” on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Arcade, and Steam. This game has players “recruit and lead a gang of bikers from Chicago to Los Angeles, fighting for every mile of the road using both brain and brawn”. Exactly how this will work is unknown, but the game is described as having “fast paced arcade combat”, and tactics that will be easily understood by “anyone who understands team sports”.
Finally, Ride to Hell: Beatdown is described as a “rock’n’roll brawler”, which will be released in the “mobile space” during an unannounced release window. Not much to go on, but Deep Silver promised more details will “follow soon”.
Check out the debut trailer and screenshots for Ride to Hell: Retribution down below, and make sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments. I’m going to try and keep an open mind about Retribution, but I was far more excited about the concept that was announced in 2008 than this one.
As soon as Deep Silver announces any additional details on the three Ride to Hell games we will let you know.
