Cast your minds back to the 80’s. We had power ballads, awesome kids TV programs and Games Workshop produced a range of non-Warhammer related games! One of these was Dark Future.

Set in a Mad Max inspired post apocalyptic United States, Dark Future let you drive and battle matchbox sized cars around a track that could be changed each game!

As obscure as the game is, it does have it’s die hard fans! Fast forward to today and Dark Future Blood Red States by Auroch Digital on Steam!

Dark Future re-imagines the game and it’s winding track in an action packed PC title that pits you against waves of highway warriors as you complete missions in order to earn cash to upgrade your car, pay for fuel and buy even bigger and deadlier weapons to strap to your vehicle!

As far as genres go it’s a weird one – Your car will follow the track with the “EZ Drive” system – you can issue commands to move left and right across the track in real time, speed up and slow down while firing off weapons with the number keys. Where things get more tactical is with the “Command Mode” interface.

In Command Mode time slows down to a crawl, allowing you to spin the camera around and get a proper gauge on your rivals – you can then pick specific targets, queue up a string of commands, find tune your speed, fix up your car and prepare for battle – hit the space bar and the game will snap back to full speed and your torrent of destruction will be unleashed upon those foolish enough to drive anywhere near you!

Think VATS from Fallout, but with fast moving cars!

It is a really satisfying feeling to accelerate up to a rival vehicle, get into the perfect position to line up multiple shots on different targets, fire up your boosters and watch everything explode around you as you dash off to the horizon skilfully dodging past their mines and returning fire!

Dark Future Blood Red States also keeps things fresh with an assortment of different types of missions. In one you could be simply trying to destroy as many cars as possible within a time limit, in another you have to stay a specific distance away from a target in order to hack them (While waves of angry cars covered in guns try and stop you doing it!)

The progress advances with various goals that you must hit – complete a specific mission, or accrue a certain amount of money – but you are free to just play the randomly generating missions as they appear.

One resource you have to manage in the Blood Red States however is fuel – as the game progresses fuel starts to get more and more expensive, meaning you have to make sure you always leave enough cash to keep your motor running even when you really want to spend it all on upgrades and advances!

From what we’ve played so far Dark Future Blood Red States is great fun, easy to pick up and play, and offers a little bit of Games Workshop history too!

If you fancy trying out a Games Workshop classic, and have a thirst for high speed vehicular combat then be sure to check the game out! As part of it’s release celebrations you can currently get 25% until the 23rd May for a bargain £14.99 over on Steam.

Over the weekend we will be looking to do some videos looking into the game, but until then make sure to check out the official trailer!

Bit thanks to Auroch Digital who provided a game key to Sprues and Brews in order for us to complete this review.

Published by Matt Crowther

View all posts by Matt Crowther