Developed by titolovesyou and published by DreadXP, PIGFACE arrives with early access featuring four levels (plus a tutorial) and the ambition to become a sort of twisted sibling to Hotline Miami, Condemned e Manhunt. A fast, dirty, brutal FPS that throws you in the face and forces you to react. The intention is clear: no pastel colours, no irony, no compromises.
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Gunplay from manual, content from prologue
There’s a phone ringing at the far end of an abandoned warehouse, while the protagonist wakes up covered in her own blood. It’s not a metaphor — it’s the opening. In PIGFACE, death has already occurred, the sin has been committed, and all that remains is a blind march toward the next mission. With a bomb planted in the skull, freedom is a concept that doesn’t exist: it only exists as an order to kill.
The weapons have a convincing impact, the shooting is immediate, the melee is raw and satisfying. The maps, then, surprise: they offer more freedom than one would expect from an indie title with early access, with vertical spaces, unexpected shortcuts, intersections that force the player to improvise and adapt. From atop a balcony above a metro station, you can observe the scene as a lesser god, deciding whether to place mines along the tracks, descend and smear your hands with a rusted hammer, or open fire with a rifle from afar. Every choice seems valid, and the adrenaline is right there: in the possibility of orchestrating violence according to your style. It’s a bit like Deus Ex, with its multiple paths, and a bit like a discount butcher, where the only rule is that the meat must be cut, in one way or another.
The problem is that this promise of freedom and brutality lasts too little. In less than two hours you practically traverse everything the current build has to offer, including optional objectives. Four levels that are consumed like cigarettes smoked in a hurry, without leaving time to truly feel the weight of the bomb pulsing in the protagonist’s skull. A brief, fierce taste, but one that gives you enough to make you crave more.
The difficulty that doesn’t exist
Where PIGFACE truly stumbles, at least for now, is in the difficulty. The artificial intelligence fails to maintain a coherent identity: most of the time, enemies remain dazed, gathering around the fallen companion, waiting for the bullet that will shatter their digital brains. Other times, especially in confined spaces, they become lethal and ruthless, capable of finishing you off in seconds without giving you time to react. The player, meanwhile, almost always has access to too many resources. Too many medical kits, too many tools, too many weapons that end up trivialising any encounter. Simply accumulate enough money to guarantee armour and a silenced pistol, and the risk evaporates: what should be a desperate dance between life and death reduces to a casual stroll through enemy fire. Probably, the game’s economy is deliberately unbalanced to allow us to savour the experience more quickly than the full version will do along the way.
The stealth, in particular, is a broken system. Enemies seem blind and deaf, easily manipulable, to the point that silent elimination becomes little more than a formality. The melee units, which should apply close-range pressure, end up appearing as dropped-in distractions, useful only for distracting for a few seconds before the real threats — the firearms — enter the scene. And it’s a shame, because in the rare moments when protection vanishes and the player is truly left bare the game reveals its best face. It’s there that PIGFACE becomes what it promises: a desperate nightmare, a dark corridor where every step is a gamble, where any object picked up from the floor can make the difference in the next confrontation. These are intense, authentic moments that restore the sense of vulnerability and brutality that should permeate the entire experience. But they’re fleeting flashes, too rare. A spark that fades too quickly, leaving you with the feeling that the true PIGFACE — the one that will make you tremble your mouse (from fear, adrenaline, or both) — is still locked away somewhere, waiting to be freed by a more ruthless balance review.
Early Access is real, for better or for worse
Entering PIGFACE today means accepting the idea that you’re facing an open construction site. There are no advanced customisation options: keys can’t be remapped, V-Sync is missing, frame rate limits don’t exist, and cutscenes, for now, can’t be skipped. Everything is still raw, bare, sometimes annoying. It’s that kind of early access that doesn’t even try to disguise itself as a finished product: it shows you its seams, its edges, and doesn’t feel ashamed of doing so. The developer’s passion shines through every choice, even in the imperfections. There’s never the feeling that this is a half-finished project or a money-grabbing bait: on the contrary, the game gives the impression of wanting to grow, to become something bigger and more solid, and to have all the tools to do so.
"This is what I have for now. Do you want to get your hands dirty with me, or would you prefer to wait?" And in this straightforwardness lies a rare value, especially in a saturated market filled with promises never kept.
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