Corporate Wetwork and Organ Markets: The World of Cruelty Squad
Cruelty Squad is set in a world built on corporate liquidations. Before you pick a design, here is the world it comes from.
Who do you play?
A drug-fuelled, emotionally numb grunt doing wetwork for a conglomerate. That is how the game's own Steam page puts it: a gig economy of corporate liquidations, in a sewage-soaked garbage world.
What is the job?
Missions. Each one is a target and a map, and how you get there is up to you. You can go in loud or stay quiet, lethal or non-lethal, and come back for an S-rank once you know the level. Hidden gear and hidden levels reward anyone who looks around.
What else is there to do?
- The markets: Cruelty Squad has a stock market and an organ market simulation, so the money you earn can go up or down.
- The people: NPCs you can talk to, in the game's flat, dark-humoured voice.
- The movement: fast, with a growing set of weapons and gear.
What is it about?
Wikipedia describes the game as anti-capitalist and anti-corporate, a satire of the gig economy. The corporate world is the joke, and the joke runs through everything: the jobs, the markets, the warnings.
How does that show up on the merch?
Through the art. The Resist Cocaine design is a lime warning notice that ends "We will get you."; Life is a distorted face with green eyes and red teeth; Divine Light Severed is a dark-red muscle figure behind green italic words. Loud colours, flat jokes, nothing softened.