Developer Alpha Channel has confirmed that its post-apocalyptic vehicular RPG TankRat will launch January 15 on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam. The release date was announced during Gamescom Opening Night Live alongside an extended trailer highlighting the game’s tank combat, mechanical enemies and science-fiction setting.
TankRat Combines Vehicular Combat With a Post-Apocalyptic RPG
Developed by Alpha Channel in partnership with Kepler Interactive, TankRat follows Whittaker, a digitized human consciousness known as a “Sleepwalker” who can merge with customizable tanks.
Whittaker’s objective is to reach Highpoint, a legendary city believed to offer salvation. Getting there requires traveling through the Event Containment Area, or ECA, a war-ravaged wasteland controlled by hostile machines known as Tankrats.
The journey gradually becomes more than a survival mission, challenging Whittaker’s understanding of morality, consciousness and power.
A mysterious guide named Cyril serves as Whittaker’s mentor, but survival ultimately depends on how effectively players can build, upgrade and operate their tanks against increasingly dangerous mechanical opponents.
Six Areas and Seven Mechanical Bosses Await Players
The ECA features six distinct areas for players to explore along with seven large mechanical bosses.
Combat and survival form the core of the experience, but TankRat gives players different ways to approach encounters based on their vehicle configuration.
Light and Medium Tanks Offer Different Combat Styles
Players can choose between two primary tank types.
The light tank prioritizes mobility, allowing players to dodge incoming projectiles and quickly retreat from dangerous encounters. The medium tank takes the opposite approach, sacrificing some agility for greater durability and offensive capability.
Players can further customize their vehicles with a selection of more than 25 weapons.
Available options range from a powerful 90mm cannon designed to tear through armored targets to a 10mm cannon suited to attacking enemies from longer distances. Different combinations of vehicles and weapons allow players to tailor their combat strategy to particular enemies and environments.
Salvaging Enemy Tanks Is Central to Progression
Destroying an enemy is only part of the process in TankRat. Players can dismantle defeated machines and recover components from their remains.
Those salvaged parts can provide new perks, advantages and customization possibilities, making scavenging a major part of character and vehicle progression.
The system reinforces one of the game’s central ideas: what players recover in the ECA directly shapes what their tank becomes.
Rather than relying only on equipment selected before entering combat, players will need to continually adapt their builds using components recovered during their journey.
Alpha Channel Draws Inspiration From Kitbashing and Sci-Fi
Alpha Channel Creative Director Daniel Ebanks said the studio wanted TankRat to combine aggressive mechanical combat with several of the team’s creative influences.
“Blistering, eviscerating combat is at TankRat’s core, but we’ve also infused it with what we love as a studio – the Tankrats are a homage to miniature ‘kitbashing’, the world is an ode to 20th century sci-fi, and playing the game feels like mech action at its finest. We’re psyched to let players get their hands on these and geek out about the same things we do. See you in the ECA.”
The game’s visual direction draws from miniature kitbashing, a modeling technique that combines components from different kits to create original designs. That influence can be seen in the mechanical enemies and heavily modified vehicles populating the ECA.
TankRat Heads to PS5 and Steam
TankRat is scheduled to release January 15 for PlayStation 5 and PC through Steam. Players can already add the game to their Steam wishlists ahead of launch.
With customizable tanks, more than 25 weapons, salvage-driven progression and seven mechanical bosses spread across six areas, TankRat is positioning itself as a combat-heavy vehicular RPG built around experimentation and survival in a hostile post-apocalyptic world.
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