Publisher Devolver Digital and co-developers Deconstructeam and Selkie Harbour have announced Virtue and a Sledgehammer, a narrative exploration game where you smash through walls and androids with a sledgehammer.

Virtue and a Sledgehammer is in development for Windows PC (via Steam) with a release set for sometime next year, in 2026.

Here’s a rundown on the game, plus its reveal trailer:

Most people resort to therapy. But you chose the brave option. A sledgehammer.

In Virtue and a Sledgehammer, explore the remains of your hometown haunted by the android ghosts of your digitized neighbors. There won’t always be a clear path, so create your own by knocking down any structures that stand in your way.

It will be a painful journey, not only because of the assault from the robots that have taken over life in the mountains, but because of the memories you’ll unearth—sometimes warm, but often traumatic—as you destroy the remnants of your childhood.

A game about family, traditions, and being a misfit.

20lbs of Physical Media

Wield your sledgehammer like an instrument of reckoning, swinging through the swathes of mechanical human facsimiles and the buildings they call home. But will violent catharsis salve your soul, or make the pain burn brighter?

A narrative experience at heart

You can’t tear down the place you were born without awakening a few ghosts. The cinematic sequences of interactive fiction will reveal your fears, desires, and your family’s knotty web of virtues and flaws.

I wish you could experience life without pain

Flesh is a source of aches and tainted humors. It’s only now, devoid of bones, devoid of hunger, that I can tell you… I have never been happier.