Loading

“ It leans into its bizarre personality, doubles down on the Buck Rogers-inspired aesthetic, and dresses it all up in blistering-bright colors.

Headlander: First Screenshots for Double Fine's Metroid Comedy 13 IMAGES

As is the case with every Double Fine game, Headlander is unlike any game the studio has made before. It marries the adventure game spirit of the developer’s heritage with the limitless personality and spectacular art direction it’s become revered for. But within that familiar framework, Headlander is a beautiful comedy by way of Metroid and Logan’s Run. It’s about adventure, exploration, space, shag carpets, robots, robot dogs, robot dancing, and decapitating yourself constantly.It’s not as morbid as it sounds, really.Your main character never really had a body, as far as he or she can remember. They wake up with their head in a helmet, unable to speak because they lack lungs, and set out to discover who they are, where humanity went, and what’s going on in this ‘70s-inspired retro-future utopia. Headlander is, perhaps unsurprisingly, about landing your head in the right places.Combat isn’t a huge part of Headlander -- it’s primarily about discovering cool places, solving puzzles, and laughing at jokes -- but it’s one of its most interesting elements. Cover keeps you safe from incoming fire, but how or if you destroy an enemy plays an important part in navigating the world and how you fight. Everything aboard the space station setting operates on clearance levels -- ROYGBIV-themed, with red clearance being the lowest and violet serving as the highest -- that encourages you to take control rather than destroy enemies you find.Accessing higher-clearance areas requires a high-clearance Shepherd bodies, which are increasingly difficult to obtain. Shepherds with higher clearance have more powerful and chaotic weapons. Low-level grunts have laser guns that ricochet once per shot. With each advancing level, the ricochet count increases -- meaning aggressive, high-level enemies with access to secure areas have frantic fire threatening your very vulnerable floating head.Headlander is a lot to digest. It’s not exactly complex, but there’s enough going on thematically and mechanically that its gradual, Castlevania-like ability rollout is necessary. You’re also discovering what’s going on alongside your amnesiac protagonist. Every step toward the next head upgrade sees your hero in new places, where each room is bursting at the seams with character. The robot citizens have quirky conversations, and respond differently to you depending on which body your head happens to be attached to. If you’re in casual dress, they’re likely to whisper secrets and be more candid than they would if you were a Shepherd guard.As you may have guessed, Headlander is, by design, super weird. It leans into its bizarre personality, doubles down on the Buck Rogers-inspired aesthetic, and dresses it all up in blistering-bright colors, a grainy sci-fi movie filter, and some surprising and gorgeous presentation. The 2D camera does a lot of interesting, cool things to show off stunning space vistas, up-close shots of certain areas, or uses slightly off-center angles to give you a great sense of space in its world.For more on Headlander, tune into IGN’s YouTube live show on Sunday, August 30, where we’ll have new gameplay footage and an interview with Double Fine’s Lee Petty.

Mitch Dyer is an Editor at IGN. Talk to him about Dota 2, movies, books, and other stuff on Twitter at @MitchyD and subscribe to MitchyD on Twitch