IndieGameMag.com: ‘The Vanishing of Ethan Carter’ A Detective Mystery From Ex-Bulletstorm Developers

Bulletstorm and the Painkiller series both made by People Can Fly have always been known for excess violence and insanity. The Astronauts, a self described small independent game studio started by ex-People Can Fly are going for something even more macabre...

The Astronauts, founded last year by Adrian Chmielarz, Andrzej Poznanski and Michal Kosieradzki were also the original founders of People Can Fly.  People Can Fly’s first title Painkiller was akin to Serious Sam and spawned its own expansions and Xbox Ports before handing over the the rights to publisher Dreamcatcher Interactive to make more sequels.  Moving forward they were annoyed about having to make their own engine and contacted Epic Games about using the Unreal Engine 3. They were then contracted by Epic to help finish the Gears of War PC version. They continued to working to co-develop titles with Epic Games and were then given the approval to make their own game, Bulletstorm which sold poorly. On August 13, 2012, Epic Games fully acquired People Can Fly and Adrian Chmielarz announced on the same day that he was leaving the company.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is about a detective using his paranormal ability to see lethal crimes at crime scenes.  You are investigating the kidnapping of a young boy and come to a beautiful mountain area. You find a severely mutilated body of one of the kidnappers and the story unfurls from there.  Using your paranormal powers and detective tools you will find the mystery of mountain and the fate of the boy.

The game is being developed on the Unreal Engine 3 engine.  Adrian promises that the game will be much shorter than usual big budget game affair and cheaper than it as well. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is planned to release digitally on PC this year.