Several of Sony’s internal and contractual extensions were hit with massive layoffs recently, some even having to close their doors or totally restructure. Thankfully, for talented folk that have worked at Superbot and Sony Santa Monica, finding new work shouldn’t be hard – however some enterprising individuals started a totally new studio together, Dead Alien Cult.

The folks at Dead Alien Cult have been working on a brand new game that is already stealing my heart, titled simply Viking Ghost. It’s a twin stick top down action game filled with thrashy heavy metal tunes, lots of action and violence, and of course, a viking who is on a quest filled with burning revenge. The game started as a side-project by Andrew Marquis and John Lawrence before the massive layoffs at both Superbot (Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale) and Sony Santa Monica (who helped with the development of PSABR), only to become an official game after they shipped PSABR last year.

Check out the pre-alpha trailer below:

A statement from the developers gave some insight as to where the inspiration for the game came from:

“The idea for Viking Ghost came after many beers, a love for heavy metal, and deciding to randomly combine the words viking and ghost together because we thought it just felt cool.”

Viking Ghost is currently in development for PC, Mac, and Linux, but it is up on Steam Greenlight, so please consider giving them a vote towards being published.