Over the last couple of weeks, the head of the studio at Battlestate Games, Nikita Buyanov, busied himself posting cryptic images and brain teasers on social media. Eventually, an entirely new website surfaced, seemingly hosting some minigame teasing a new project called COR3.
Now, another website has surfaced, this one hosting nothing more than a countdown and a blurry video that, when examined, represents a first-person shooter that scales back to show an entire planet. That countdown expires on February 1st, which is when everyone believes we’ll get something tangible about this game.
What is COR3, and Why is it Exciting?
Nikita Buyanov is one of the creative minds who has directed the growth of Escape from Tarkov over the last decade. He has dedicated his life to the extraction shooter, a fact that he pointed out when we interviewed him as part of a recent episode of Access Granted.
He recently took a cryptic turn on social media, posting stacks of enigmatic images and puzzles, which his followers set to decoding.
Before long, a website had been found, an interactive thing that placed users in some kind of post-apocalyptic bunker with a retro-futuristic computer system bursting with lore, teasers, and world-building elements. As it stands, we have little idea what COR3 is, but the best guess is that it’s Buyanov’s new project.
We say ‘Buyanov’ and not Battlestate Games, as right now, there’s no indication that Battlestate is linked to COR3. The COR3 trademark, dug up by eagle-eyed netizens, is in Nikita’s name, and nobody but the man himself has been sharing content related to COR3 online.
On the countdown website, a clock is running out, and it’s set to expire on February 1st at 3 PM GMT / 10 AM EST. Nobody knows what will happen when that countdown hits zero, but it’s a safe bet that something more tangible will be revealed by Buyanov, and whoever else he’s working with (if anyone).
COR3 appears to represent some kind of alternate reality title set in a universe where Earth suffered from a catastrophic event. There’s talk of interplanetary travel, space pirates, and ships adrift in the great beyond, all of which couldn’t be further from Escape from Tarkov, the leading extraction shooter.
It’s set hundreds of years in the future, but the COR3 website that users could interact with boasted grounded elements like modern-day armor items and traditional computers.
What do you think Nikita’s new game is? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the tease for Stellar Blade 2’s location
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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