A thing that often happens in this line of work is: a developer or PR person enthusiastically trying to convince you that a not-especially-interesting game is actually incredibly innovative and exciting. The Gamescom demo for Nekome: Nazi Hunter is the first time I have been in the reverse position: I thought the game was interesting, well-timed, and politically bold—the studio was keen to convince me it wasn’t.
The demo of Nekome I played goes hard. The Nazi haut-monde—an identikit line-up of chisel-jawed pigs—has gathered for a sumptuous dinner, and to chortle with one another about European death camps and the inevitable victory of the Aryan race over its lessers. Only one figure stands out: the meek waiter, with dark hair and skin, who caps off the boss Nazi’s opening speech by revealing a severed Wehrmacht head beneath a silver cloche.
Under your control, he proceeds to stab every unarmed Nazi in the room to death.
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The devs at ProbablyMonsters told me afterwards that they were not “political” and that Nekome was not making a political statement. Well, they had me fooled.
But let’s get mechanical. I suspect a lot of people will, justifiably, find the deficiencies of Nekome’s movement and combat too much to bear. In the demo I played, it all just felt a little off—animations did not blend together nicely, the camera would get hung up on objects and enemies, and the actual process of beating a fascist to death erupted in clunky staccato movements rather than the fluid, dancelike combat of Arkham. It’s by no means dreadful, but it doesn’t feel great to play.
But man, it has style. It’s pure grindhouse, and the safe-to-discuss, entirely non-political influences ProbablyMonsters was happy to speak to me about—like Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds—are on happy display. Every fascist is a fountain of gore waiting to happen; once you beat them to within an inch of their life, you can unleash finishers whereby Vano—the game’s young Romani protagonist whose entire family was murdered in front of him in an act of senseless Nazi violence—will use a knife to unzip his enemies in dramatic fashion.
Kill enough Nazis, and you can dip into a focus mode, whereby you can select distinct Nazi body parts on which to vent your righteous fury. Once your foes are dead, you will find yourself constantly confronted with prompts to “desecrate corpse” as you stumble over their remains during combat. Take the game’s advice, and Vano will do a little extra violence. As a treat.
All of this is punctuated by cinematic touches. Frame lines on Nekome’s ‘film reel’ will become visible as Vano’s violence reaches more absurd heights, as if the game simply can’t contain his rage.
All very fun and gleefully OTT, yes, but the bit where Nekome really got me leaning forward—where I became convinced this might be a game that had something to say, was when it transplanted the action from Europe over to the US of A. It’s not just SS men Vano cuts up, he also takes on the German American Bund: the real-life pro-Nazi organisation that attempted to work its tendrils into the USA in the years leading up to the Second World War.
American fascists attack Vano’s WW1-vet mentor, so off he goes to their offices to do what he does best, muttering that “These Americans have sworn themselves to a morally bankrupt cause,” as he smashes up their printing presses and beats them to death with fists, bottles, and, at one point, a free-standing ashtray.
It’s stylish, fun, janky and, during a time of worldwide far-right revival, deeply cathartic. I found myself bemused to be told by Nekome’s makers that their game about slaughtering hordes of European and American Nazis—at a time when European and American Nazis are a lot more prominent in real life than they have been for a while—had no explicit politics whatsoever.
They did tell me one thing, though, when I asked if Vano’s bloody quest for vengeance would leave me filled with regret by the game’s end: “I don’t think you’ll feel bad about killing Nazis in this game.” Well, that’ll have to do.
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