This ex-Insomniac dev's game is a raucous tribute to '80s fantasy art

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ChainStaff is inspired by fantasy art legends Michael Whelan and Roger Dean.

80s fantasy art inspired game art, a man fights giant monsters
This shot from the game is clearly inspired by Michael Whelan's painting, Lovecraft's Nightmare. (Image credit: Mommy’s Best Games)

Before I clocked the grappling hook, before the bosses started tearing chunks out of the scenery, ChainStaff's artwork hit the mark with me. This is a game that looks like it could have been peeled off a heavy metal album cover. Its airbrushed excess, alien scale, and unapologetic 80s sci-fi bravado are the sort of imagery that once sold entire worlds on the back of the best retro games alone (hello, Shadow of the Beast).

Mommy’s Best Games’ upcoming action platformer is steeped in the visual language of late-70s and 80s fantasy illustration. The influence of Michael Whelan is immediate: vast, strange creatures with exaggerated eyes and organic forms dominate the frame, dwarfing a tiny, defiant hero who looks permanently one bad decision away from being crushed.

Chainstaff retro game

(Image credit: Mommy’s Best Games)

The bombast of '80s fantasy

What’s striking is how little restraint the art direction shows, in the best possible way. ChainStaff isn’t chasing tasteful minimalism or retro pastiche; it's embracing the bombast of its influences: grotesque mutations, high-contrast palettes, and a sense that everything on screen is either hostile, unstable, or both. It’s pure nostalgia, yes, but it's confident, not reverent, and features some very modern gameplay ideas.

Twist is the titular ChainStaff itself; the transforming grappling hook can be flung as a spear, dropped as a shield, or stretched across gaps as a makeshift bridge. It slices bold, readable shapes against backgrounds that might otherwise overwhelm. It’s a smart bit of visual design, in sync with the gameplay design, that alludes to the devs' Insomniac link.

Chainstaff retro game

(Image credit: Mommy’s Best Games)

Behind the project is Nathan Fouts, a veteran developer formerly of Insomniac Games, whose past work has always leaned toward clarity wrapped in controlled madness, in hits like Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Mass Destruction. Here, that philosophy manifests as fluid animation and readable combat layered onto worlds that look like they were painted on the cover of a Meat Loaf album.

“I love games such as Mega Man X and Bionic Commando, and I wanted to add something new. The grappling hook mechanics are smooth as silk here, and the ability to change the ChainStaff into a spear, shield, bridge and more, all with the touch of a single button should give players a new type of platforming challenge!” said Fouts.

ChainStaff’s visual throwback isn’t about recreating pixel art or mimicking old hardware limitations. Instead, it taps into a deeper nostalgia, the era when game art promised strange worlds you hadn’t seen before, when box covers and album sleeves did half the imaginative work for you. And then ChainStaff puts it all up in front of you, powered by Unity (additional dev work is being handled by Unity experts Super Soul) and moving at a pace.

Chainstaff retro game

(Image credit: Mommy’s Best Games)

ChainStaff launches on 8 April for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Steam and Xbox One and Series S/X.

Ian Dean
Ian Dean
Editor, Digital Arts & 3D

Ian Dean is Editor, Digital Arts & 3D at Creative Bloq, and the former editor of many leading magazines. These titles included ImagineFX, 3D World and video game titles Play and Official PlayStation Magazine. Ian launched Xbox magazine X360 and edited PlayStation World. For Creative Bloq, Ian combines his experiences to bring the latest news on digital art, VFX and video games and tech, and in his spare time he doodles in Procreate, ArtRage, and Rebelle while finding time to play Xbox and PS5.

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