Samson: A Tyndalston Story’s City and Car Designes Detailed in New Developer Diary

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Liquid Swords, the developer of the upcoming action game Samson: A Tyndalston Story, has released a new behind-the-scenes video showing how the game was made. The video, a development diary, highlights the design of the game’s city and cars, with insights from concept artist Piotr Kupsc and vehicle artist Damian Ksiezopolski. You can watch it below.

According to Kupsc, a major difficulty in creating the city’s design was harmonizing how it looked with how it played. The team wanted players to intuitively understand the city, as if it were a familiar place from everyday life, while also ensuring it was fun and engaging as a game.

The development team tackled the project with a variety of methods. A key decision was to establish specific measurements early on, preventing last-minute adjustments during development. These measurements covered things like doorway heights and hallway widths. However, this wasn’t without its difficulties; hallways couldn’t be too narrow, as that could cause problems with gameplay and camera angles.

Kupsc explained that the team drew a lot of inspiration from Northeastern American cities of the 1990s, like New York and Philadelphia. They gathered many photos from that time – images full of character that helped define the project’s look and feel. To stay focused, they also established three core artistic principles to guide their selection of references and ensure a consistent style.

He explained that art direction rests on three main ideas: making a statement, reflecting the city’s harshness, and highlighting societal imbalances. A strong statement is achieved through large, attention-grabbing visuals, such as huge murals. The city’s rough side is shown through art depicting decay and hardship. Finally, the art also points to the unfair distribution of wealth and the injustices within Tyndalstone, acting as a commentary on these issues.

The developers are really hoping players will enjoy discovering all the hidden details and secret spots they’ve carefully added to the game. There are many areas that aren’t tied to any specific missions, but are still fun and rewarding to explore simply for the sake of discovery.

Ksiezopolski explained how Samson’s car, the Magnum Opus, came to be designed. He shared that the studio studied typical cars from the 1990s, and that the style of that decade heavily influenced the car’s appearance.

As a gamer, I’ve been hearing about the car designs, and it’s cool to learn they’re drawing inspiration from real cars, but ultimately, they’re creating something new. The designers had a ton of freedom, which is awesome – if they were working with actual car brands, they’d be way more restricted. But that freedom also comes with a challenge: they still need to make the cars feel familiar and relatable to players, so we recognize what we’re looking at!

The design of the Magnum Opus went through several changes during its creation. It began as a typical four-door sedan, but designers felt it didn’t match the character of Samson, as it came across as too ordinary. Ultimately, the studio decided to create an entirely new vehicle for Samson, aiming for a design that better reflected his personality and gave him the right kind of edge.

Throughout the game, cars will get visibly damaged. The developers specifically wanted this damage to be useful – players should be able to use their vehicles to powerfully eliminate opponents. According to lead artist Tomasz Ksiezopolski, achieving this involved a lot of collaboration with VFX artist Oscar, who was key to making the impacts feel truly significant.

The PC release of Samson: A Tyndalston Story is scheduled for April 8th. Before then, you can read the studio founder’s thoughts on how the game is being compared to Grand Theft Auto.

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2026-03-09 16:42