Comedenti: The Condemned

### Rating

* T for Blood & Gore, Crude Humor, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol and Drugs, Violence (Physical copy)
* M for Blood & Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Alcohol and Drugs (Uncensored DLC)
* PEGI 18 for Violence, Sex, Language (some content is censored)

### Genre(s)

* Action/adventure
* Interactive film
* Survival horror
* Third-person shooter

### Platform(s)

* PlayStation 4
* PlayStation 5
* Xbox One
* Xbox Series X and S
* Windows PC
* iOS
* Android

**Comedenti: The Condemned** is an action/adventure survival shooter game set in the Venture universe.

## Synopsis

Squaremile, Lousiana is a troubled rural town led by a virulently anti-Indigenous leader that is quarrantined after it is overrun by a virus that has many disturbing effects. Some victims of the virus are zombified, others are mutated, and the rest stay human but lose the capacity to do anything but cause violence. It's up to a group of survivors led by the mysterious Jacob and the genius Athena to fight for survival, using only an arsenal of weaponry, improvised tech, and their guts.

## Cast

* Channing Tatum as Jacob
* Ian Alexander is the voice and motion-capture actor of Austin.
* David Schwimmer as Rocco Aydamar
* Margot Robbie as Esme
* Alaqua Cox as Warstorm
* Maddie Taylor as Ms. Awesome
* Halsey as Shel Morgan
* Ice-T as Lauren King
* Brianna Hildebrand as Arianna Lucien
* Ryan Cassata as Kyle Soho
* Lachlan Watson as Alex Ritter
* Ian Harvie as Ayne Dent
* Brian Michael Smith as Richard Payne
* Logan Lerman as Straight Edge
* J. Michael Tatum as Gantry
* Mitsuki Saiga as Rei Gaia
* Michael Spears as Chief Nathan Pike
* Forrest Goodluck as Red Eyes
* Anushka Sharma as TBA
* Toshio Furukawa as TBA
* Jon Heder as TBA
* "Weird Al" Yankovic as TBA
* Maria Kawamura as TBA
* Patrick Seitz as TBA
* Rebel Wilson as TBA
* Eminem as TBA

## Development and releases

The idea for Comedenti: The Condemned came near the end of 2018 when Deck Nine was beginning work on *Life is Strange: True Colors*, an episodic spin-off of the *Life is Strange* series. Developing a narrative around another established video game led the team to brainstorm the idea for a Venture-related game, given that the game's open-ended nature provided creative freedom, according to Mark Lyons, and would make for an intriguing challenge. Both Deck Nine and 1001 Spears recognized the lore in-game and the amount of fan-fiction that existed in the form of YouTube videos and other media formats that demonstrated the potential for storytelling in Venture but opted to create a prequel to the game's events instead. The majority of Deck Nine's staff were already fans of Venture, consistently playing on a private server where some of the incidents that occurred became concepts for the game's events. Deck Nine started negotiating with 1001 Spears in early 2019 and both teams started collaborating on Comedenti: The Condemned shortly thereafter. Lyons noted that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment's acquisition of 1001 Spears did not factor into the game's development, as their interaction with 1001 Spears started substantially before Warner's negotiations.

The game's plot was writted for adult audiences despite having major child characters, comparable to Stephen King novels and film adaptations like *Carrie* and *It*, as well as the *South Park* television series, all of which are referenced in the game. Deck Nine and 1001 Spears' intended content would be equivalent to an R or PEGI 18 rating, with an uncensored version available as free DLC that PEGI refused classification and was supposed to equate to an NC-17 rating.

The game includes a trigger warning for upsetting and graphic violence towards children, as the events of the first plotline School Shooting were akin to the Uvalde Elementary School Shooting, which occurred just two months before the game's release. A similar warning was included in Venture: Crusades and both of them require acknowledgement before the game can be played, in the same vein as the epilepsy warning.

## Reception

Metacritic gave the Windows version 89/100 based on 8 reviews, the PlayStation 5 version 88/100 based on 12 reviews and the Xbox Series X and S version 91/100 based on 10 reviews.

Game critic MovieBob considers Comedenti: The Condemned the game of the year, praising the game’s deconstruction of American erasure of the tragedies experienced by Native Americans, stating: "There is an extreme sadness that runs through even the most intense, impactful violence in Comedenti, as regardless of how delighted it makes you, it is still about the murder of thousands and our ‘founding values,’ plus the scar through our legacy as a country that lives on today.” Game critic Kotaku gave the game four out of four stars, stating that "for its few miscalculations, this game is a signature piece, gory and gorgeous, smart and silly, as meaningful and resounding as Yoko Taro’s Nier — and, we will bet, more likely to get re-evaluated by America five years from now, and vindicated as ‘a masterpiece.'"

## Parents Guide

### **Sex & Nudity**

* Amelia suspects that a man is a pedophile throughout the game and flashes him while trying to prove this in the M-rated version, this is brief but extremely rancid.
* Amber/Austin can scroll through pictures on their iPad and will reach a shaved and open vagina out of nowhere, this is referenced in dialogue and a real photo. (M)
* A series of photographs depicts a woman felating a man with an erection with sexual looks on both of their faces, this isn't present in the T-rated version.
* At one point, there is a surreal vision that depicts a mostly silhouetted man becoming erect with his penis seemingly penetrating the silhouette of a woman. (M)

### **Violence & Gore**

Severe

* Both the T and M-rated versions have extremely strong violence for their respective ratings, with the latter being substantially more graphic for obvious reasons.
* A character shoots a zombie before we see a bloody bite on her hand, in the T-rated version the camera pans up as Jacob hacks the person's hand off off-screen and they cry out before he applies a bandage to it. Jacob later pours alcohol over their stump below the screen and reapplies the bloodstained bandage as they scream, the bandaged stump is yet again depicted and their arm is later put in a sling. In the M-rated version, blood sprays from their hand for 40 seconds and you see the hand getting hacked off with a gory wound.
* One character is shown in the wreckage of a car crash hanging sideways out of their seat with blood covering their cheek and temple; they release their seatbelt and find a four-foot-long piece of metal impaling their side and piercing through the back, slathered entirely in blood. The character in question falls from their seat to the ground and the amputee aids them in walking to Athena's laboratory where they collapse at the door and bleed out, there is more blood in the M-rated version.
* All of the Comedenti drool copious amounts of saliva and there is usually blood coming out of their mouths and sometimes noses.
* Zombie and mutant heads can be dismembered and their eyes can be ripped out of their sockets, along with decapitation, dismemberment, bisection, and otherwise getting hacked to pieces with gore, blood is black in the T-rated version, insects are also depicted rotting people's skin and reducing them to skeletons. Raw bones are seen on zombie and human body parts and when you slice zombies in half blood splatters on your weapon and intestines are visible.
* All characters can be impaled by hooks, arrows and bolts, blood sprays out but it's more graphic in the M-rated version with visible wounds and stains.
* Violence against the murderers is the least graphic in the T-rated version (it's the same as violence against zombies and mutants in the M-rated one) but still equivalent to the *Uncharted* games with blood splatters when enemies are shot along with bloodstains and bleeding wounds during scripted events.
* Mutant and zombie limbs are shown with skin and flesh getting crunchily eaten off of them and heads are eaten offscreen, blood is only in the M-rated version.
* After a gunfight that causes a ton of bloody wounds and covers characters in blood, a serial killer Comedenti slices out the heart of a character as they scream in pain and devours it with his back to the camera. Blood is splattered on the victim's shoulders but most of the bloody chest cavity isn't depicted until after the consumption, the eating of the heart is depicted in the reflection of a corpse's eyeball and Jacob pukes onscreen, blood is seen on the murderer's mouth and hands after this. Players with weak stomachs will want to look away, this sequence last a minute and doesn't require any player interaction, it's also completely uncensored in the M-rated version with gore hanging off of the heart and it getting chewed to pieces in graphic detail.
* During the gunfight in the fortress grounds, one teammate is shot and murdered outside in the shadows and scalped with the cut and blood indiscernible; after a ton of gunfire, a board falls on the heads of two killers, smashing their heads under it with blood. Jacob also throws a dagger into the chest of a murderer, killing him with blood depicted; the head smashing depicts gory chunks and the scalping is onscreen in the M-rated version.
* A murderer digs a pistol out from under floorboards with bloodied fingers and he shoots two noncombatants dead with blood depicted and two other people are shot and killed with very loud gunshots and blood (along with gory chunks and copious pools of blood in the uncut release).

### Profanity

* There are 200 uses of shit and many uses of dick, pussy, asshole, and the middle finger gesture in the T-rated version, there are 800 uses of f\*ck in the M-rated version, many uses of c\*ck and a dozen of c\*nt. Racist slurs including n\*\*\*\*r are present in both versions but their use is heavily discouraged.

### Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking

* Alcohol can be consumed by anyone and there is the use of unconfirmed drugs in the T-rated version and the use of confirmed drugs in the M-rated one.

### Frightening/Intense Scenes

* There is a shocking amount of scary and intense violence in the T-rated version, with an extremely high body count including genocide and pervasive references to cannibalism, including a scene of someone's heart being sliced out and devoured, albeit slightly in shadow. The M-rated version is one of the most violent games ever.

## Trivia

* Most ideas for Comedenti: The Condemned, including the title, were created by Crocodilians.
* The preliminary name for the game's setting, Squaremile, was inspired by Mile Square Regional Park.

## Tropes

* Abandoned Laboratory: One of Athena's bases of operations is a decrepit science lab.
* Amusement Park of Doom: Squaremile Funland naturally becomes one, seeing as the game revolves around a Zombie Apocalypse, but it was also neglected to begin.
* Gas Station of Doom: While it doesn't get much emphasis, the few service stations in Squaremile are unsurprisingly abandoned.
* Hellhole Prison: It's fairly obvious that Aydamar wanted to keep the conditions of Squaremile Correctional Facility from public knowledge.
* Old School Building: Much of the Sucky School Squaremile K-12 is situated in one that's somehow still operational, the building once being a factory that relied unanimously on child labor.
* Sinister Subway: Not only is the subway in Squaremile abandoned and filled with zombies but one of the trains has a portal to the Inside Out (Eldritch Location) inside of it.
* Sucky School: Squaremile K-12 embodies countless stereotypes of public schools, from budget issues to terrible teaching to a massive bullying problem.