Bohemia Interactive is best known for Arma, its gritty military series built around large-scale warfare, and DayZ, the brutal zombie survival game where the infected are sometimes the least of your problems.
So, what does the studio behind tense military firefights and a zombie apocalypse make next? Another survival game? Something with aliens, perhaps? Not quite…
Cosmo Tales enters Steam Early Access today, swapping battlefields and zombie-infested wastelands for donut-shaped planets, colorful alien worlds, and sentient vehicles called cosmobiles. It’s a family-friendly roguelite inspired by Saturday morning cartoons and indie comic books, and a very different kind of adventure from the studio behind Arma and DayZ.
One Button, an Entirely Different Universe
Talking cars aren’t the only unusual thing about Cosmo Tales. Its big idea is being able to jump between dimensions at the press of a button, including right in the middle of a fight. Switch dimensions and more than the scenery changes. Your cosmobile can gain different abilities, enemies can behave differently, and the rules of combat can change along with them. Even the art style can shift depending on where you end up.
That means you’re not just hopping between dimensions because one looks nicer than the other. If you’re surrounded by enemies or struggling against a boss, switching realities could completely change the fight. One dimension might give you the tools you need to deal with a particular enemy, while another could help you escape an attack before it lands.
You’ll need those options, because Cosmo Tales isn’t just a leisurely drive through space. Combat has you strafing around enemies, firing weapons, pulling off barrel rolls, and taking on everything from jet formations to huge motherships.
Procedural elements mix things up between missions, while the adventure itself is split into episodes, each sending you somewhere new in its strange retro-futuristic universe. Bohemia is aiming for something younger players can easily pick up, but with enough going on behind the dimension-switching system to give more experienced players something to play around with too.
Yes, Those Space Cars Are Real Cars
You might expect a game about talking space cars to invent a few ridiculous vehicles of its own. Instead, Bohemia went digging through Škoda’s back catalogue. The Early Access lineup includes three cosmobiles based on real Škoda vehicles, and these aren’t exactly the models you’re likely to see parked outside the grocery store.
There’s the Škoda 110 Super Sport Ferat, a one-off prototype with a suitably strange history. The car appeared in the 1982 Czechoslovak horror movie Ferat Vampire, which imagined a racing car powered by human blood.
Then there’s the bright yellow Škoda Felicia Fun, a pickup produced between 1995 and 2000. Only 4,016 were ever made, so Bohemia hasn’t exactly gone for the obvious choices here. The Škoda 1203 completes the trio available at launch.
It’s an unexpected bit of real-world motoring history to find in the middle of a colorful space roguelite, but somehow a rare Czech pickup blasting its way around donut planets makes perfect sense for Cosmo Tales.
Early Access Is Just the First Stop
Bohemia expects Cosmo Tales to remain in Early Access for at least a year, although that could change depending on development and player feedback. The core mechanics are already largely in place, with the Early Access period set to focus on expanding the game with new chapters alongside further improvements and polish. The studio also plans to increase the price as more content is added.
For now, Cosmo Tales is available exclusively on PC via Steam, with no other platforms or full release date confirmed. Bohemia Interactive has spent years putting players through military conflicts and zombie apocalypses. Today, it’s handing them the keys to a talking Škoda and sending them into space. That’s one hell of a change of gear.