Back in 2020, Christofer Sundberg, founder of Avalanche Studios, revealed what he would be doing with the next chapter of his career after selling Avalanche with the announcement of Liquid Swords. Six years later, the studio is weeks away from its debut game, Samson: A Tyndalston Story.
It's not too dissimilar to the kinds of games that Sundberg's Avalanche was known for. Like Just Cause and Mad Max, they both star a certain flavour of tough guy. The latter was also cited in a preview presentation I attended last week, with the emphasis on car combat in Samson connecting it to Mad Max.
What separates Samson as a new evolution in the kinds of action games we saw from Avalanche Studios while Sundberg was at its helm is how much more zoomed in it is. The team is adamant about what they are trying to deliver; they don't want to confuse anyone about what Samson is and what it isn't.
When I attended a press event last week, Sundberg even called this out at the top of his presentation. Beginning with a disclaimer, which he reiterated in his answers to me below, Sundberg was clear that Samson is "not GTA." I get why he's hammering it home, because while no game wants to try and set that comparison up in the first place, you definitely don't want to try putting your flag in the sand and compare yourself to Grand Theft Auto when the next entry in that series is (hopefully) just months away.
You can read more about my thoughts on Samson and the presentation here. Below, you can read my interview with Sundberg and Donald Young, senior game designer at Liquid Swords and mission designer on Samson: A Tyndalston Story.
Sundberg explains a little more about what he means when he says Samson is "not GTA," while Young shares a bit more about how the city of Tyndalston evolves across the game, and how its system of action points is designed to have players thinking about how they spend each day in the city, with every choice they make - and don't make - impacting your standing in South End.
After playing through a few different kinds of missions and story missions, I'm curious as to how missions evolve deeper into the game. Are there ever missions where we're driving (or piloting?) something other than a car?
Donald Young: Samson is a driver; a racer, getaway driver, and car brawler. He does not have his pilot’s license quite yet, there are only cars in the game. Samson has a unique car, we call the Magnum Opus, that is important to Samson, and we hope will be to players as well. The player has to maintain the Magnum Opus throughout the game, repairing it after car combat and refuelling the nitrous at the various gas stations around the city.
The Magnum Opus also has a few unique mechanics that will help Samson in his escapades. There’s a Kickdown action where the player can lower the current gear of the car, giving you more pull and higher rpm, which is useful in side-ramming other cars and while drifting. You can also kill the engine, which is useful when hiding from the cops. Samson can also store a weapon in the trunk of the car, useful when you’re paying someone a visit.
How many kinds of missions (Beatdowns, Getaways, Deliveries, etc) are there?
DY: There are eight Job types in the game, four on-foot and four vehicles, in addition to a few unique mechanics/scenarios you’ll see in the Chapters. And we’ve tried to ensure that within a mission type there’s variety in each experience. For example, with Beatdowns, there are over 30 combat arenas we’ve built throughout the city, some that allow vehicle use, that all have various environmental hazards and impromptu melee weapons the player can use in fun and chaotic ways.
The Story Deck system, which is our system for spawning small story events in the city, is also active in most Jobs. So, for example, you may be tailing a target through an alley and come across a civilian being harassed. Do you stop and help this person, potentially losing your target as well as the cash and time from failing the Job, or do you look the other way so that you can make sure you make your daily debt payment?
These are the kinds of choices and actions we want the player to encounter when playing the missions.
You said that Samson is a game about 'Intensity Over Scale,' what are some of the ways you think the game delivers on that promise?
DY: The game is about pressure, about making the best of what you can minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, and day-to-day. The minute-to-minute pressure comes from combat. Brawls are intense and chaotic, and failure means losing time and money. Hour-to-hour the player has to balance between Jobs that have higher rewards but a higher risk of walking away with nothing.
And day-to-day the player has to deal with ups and downs of the debt cycle, and how they’re trending. If things are going poorly, debt collectors will start showing up, as well as other harsher consequences. Samson has to juggle a lot of problems, and that’s just life in Tyndalston.
Beyond a lack of modern tech and fashion, what are some of the key ways Samson is situated in the 90s? How many 90s-era easter eggs will people who remember the decade be able to spot?
DY: My favorite 90s reference, sort of, in the game is actually about a floppy disk you have to steal. Samson and Carter are both adamant that computers will never catch on, and I just find it funny that even though computers were already a thing at that time, Samson and Carter are so old-school that they’re behind even in their own time.
For us, the goal was less about creating a time capsule into the 90s for the people to explore and more about asking ourselves what was Tyndalston like in the 90s. So, for example, there’s a pharmacy that you go into fairly early in the game. And the pharmacy feels like stepping into the past, from the products to the signage, except that everything has a layer of grime on it.
That Tyndalston grime, sticks to your shoe, and leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It’s also the second time that week that particular pharmacy has been robbed. And the whole city has this feel to it. So you’ll see cars from the 90s, but in the South End, you’ll also see cars from the 80s and the 70s, because not everyone can afford a new car. It’s a place in time.
How much of the city of Tyndalston do we get to see? Are there ways the city/our view of the city evolves as we get deeper into the story?
DY: Your view of the city should absolutely change over time. As you progress through the game, and explore the different city blocks, the hope is that you start to build an understanding of how South End operates. What problems the citizens are facing, what forces are responsible for those problems, and what role/power Samson has in those. And also how Samson is just another resident himself.
Our hope is that players learn street names, which alleys are good for losing the cops, or choose to spend their time hanging out at many of the bars in the game. For me, South End is a joy to explore, and I hope players will get as much fun out of exploring the city as we had building it.
You made it clear that players shouldn't be comparing Samson to GTA, and during the presentation, when I asked which games you'd rather players look to for examples of what Samson will be like, Mad Max, Hardspace Shipbreaker, and Batman Arkham Asylum were all mentioned for different reasons. What's one element about Samson that you feel is totally unique to it, even among its similarities to other games?
Christofer Sundberg: I don’t want to stop anyone from comparing Samson to any game, including GTA. With that said, Samson is not GTA and it’s not AAA. It’s a focused mid-budget game built for intensity over scale, priced accordingly. One distinguishing feature that sticks out is the game loop around the debt, which is not the main story. It’s a loop that is constantly hanging over your head.
I find it really stressful in a fun way and anyone who’s been stalked by debt collectors (I was when I put my first studio Rock Solid Studios (the irony of that name…) out of business back in 2002) knows that feeling. Once you realize that there’s no way around it, you have to plan your game sessions accordingly so you balance the money-earning missions against the story missions.
So all in all, the pressure is unique for a game like this, and you can really feel it. Then we’ve picked pieces from the games mentioned and added our own flavor to them.
Samson is Liquid Sword's debut game, but its subheading, 'A Tyndalston Story,' and some of the comments made during the presentation made me curious: is this the beginning of an anthology series of Tyndalston stories? Will Samson always be the main character, or is this first game also trying to establish a foundation for a grander story with multiple key characters?
CS: Building a world / city to be filled with interesting and mysterious characters has been our goal from the very beginning. We’ve taken a lot of inspiration from Taylor Sheridan's worldbuilding in Yellowstone, 1883, and 1923, and the way he’s created characters that live on for generations, each telling their own story, and one can really see why characters in Yellowstone are as they are and act the way they do.
Tyndalston will be our Gotham City and Montana. Future stories will shift perspective, but remain in Tyndalston. In Samson we experience Tyndalston in the South End district, where Samson grew up (in a small city block called The Ditch). We’ve written a 400-year history of the city waiting to be told in games and other media.
With an increasing amount of video games being adapted into films and TV shows, is that an avenue you would like to explore with Samson in the future, and if you could pick one director to work on the project, who would it be?
CS: Considering my previous answer, my choice of director would be Taylor Sheridan. We are in discussions with some 'media giants' about taking Tyndalston to linear media, but as we all know, Hollywood moves very slowly, so we’ll see what happens.
Moving the IP beyond games has been my vision since I started Liquid Swords, without jumping on the 'cross-media' trend that everyone says they are doing, but then they don’t. As a studio with these ambitions, you have to actively pursue every option in that area. The IP won’t fly into the movie theatres by itself, though, and we don’t have that experience or network internally.
We are working with Story Kitchen who are behind the Sonic Movies and are working with high-profile game IPs such as Tomb Raider, Just Cause, and The House of the Dead, to name a few.
Speaking of the studio's future, with the current state of the industry and how many studios we've seen in the time since Liquid Swords was established get shuttered after their first game, what steps has Liquid Swords taken to ensure it is set up for the long-term, even if Samson doesn't meet its commercial expectations?
CS: I’ve been making games for over three decades and never experienced such a desperate, cowardly (they call it “risk averse”) and confused state of the business. After the acquisition / over-investing party during ‘21-’23, we are dealing with the hangover and it’s been going on for three years.
As I started Liquid Swords in 2020, I made a big private investment in the company so for me it’s not only my personal finances that are at stake, it is also the future of Liquid Swords and our mission (which to me is more important than the money). In 2021, NetEase invested in a minority stake in the studio, and I am eternally grateful for their trust. I wouldn’t be doing this unless I strongly believed in our mission and, most importantly my team.
With that said, we have very careful cash-flow planning as we are on a limited budget. Last year, we made the tough decision to lay off (I don’t call it ‘restructuring’ or any other BS term for what it actually is) half the team, to buy us a longer runway into 2026. We made a bet, and we do everything we can to deliver a fun $25 experience to lay the foundation for the future. I hope our future players will see the potential in our work and follow us on our journey to make something bigger.
Generative AI is undoubtedly the hottest and most controversial topic in the video game industry. Does Liquid Swords use GenAI in its development processes? Do you have any policies dictating how it should or shouldn't be used, and whether you use it or not, do you believe GenAI tech has a place in game development now or in the future?
CS: We only have one policy here at Liquid Swords; No policies. We are not using GenAI as we develop Samson. We have used text-to-speech for temp-voice overs, but that’s it and none of those temp voice-overs will end up in the final game. I have tried to experiment with AI and so far I haven’t seen any successful tool that we can apply to our way of making games, so I wait and see.
Right now, going full on AI can become a legal nightmare. I also love to work with people, not robots, so that is a reason in itself to avoid fiddling around with experimental AI tech. Once there is a good reason, except for saving money and replacing super-creative developers with robots, to use GenAI we can look closer at it, but that’s a question for the future once GenAI matures. Liquid Swords focus is 100% of making Samson, with the team we have, not robots.
Do you have a message about Samson you'd like to share with players?
CS: We are really excited to bring Samson to you, and trust us, we are doing everything we can to make this experience as powerful and enjoyable as possible within the time and financial constraints we have. It is a challenge in today’s business climate, but it is fun, and we hope that shows in the game.
Thank you for your time.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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