If you’re a fan of gruff blokes punching goons and putting the pedal to the metal in muscle cars, Samson looks like it’ll be up your alley. It’s the debut game of Liquid Swords, the Swedish studio founded by former Just Cause and Mad Max developer Christofer Sundberg, and mirrors the gritty open-world destructive mayhem both of those are known for.

Set in a fictional industrial metropolis called Tyndalston, which its leather-jacketed protagonist dubs the “asshole of the world”, Samson is about a dude in debt. Each day, this dude wakes up with a daily quota to meet in terms of paying back what he owes to some bad people, a problem that grows worse by the hour unless he takes action.

That action is punching goons in the face or slapping them with improvised weapons as part of Mad Max-ish brawls in alleyways and mini-marts or getting behind the wheel of your all-black muscle car and using it to either race people, ram them off the road, or some combination of both. Police chases will kick off if your punching and driving gets a bit too rowdy, giving you a chance to unleash those skills on some boys in blue.

As you go, you’ll work your way through the different factions of Tyndalston’s districts, spending action points to choose which missions you dedicate Samson’s limited time to. There’s a tale about unearthing the dude’s past in the city and saving his family to offer extra motivation to get out there and wreak havoc.

As much as playing a game about having constant money worries might hit a bit too close to home given what the real world’s like for the non-rich at the moment, I’m keen to see if Liquid Swords have nailed the satisfying violent rollercoaster ride a game like this usually needs to shine. It looks more along the lines of Mad Max’s desert marauding transplanted into an urban spawl than Just Cause’s more exotic pinging around a map and blowing shit up, and I’m certainly partial to the former. Here’s hoping the gritty city doesn’t struggle to seem a bit dull compared to the backdrops Sundberg and co worked with at Avalanche Studios.

Samson’s set to release in early 2026 and you can wishlist it on Steam, if you’re so inclined.