There are two types of gamers: the builders and the breakers. One will devote hours to recreating a real person in Tomodachi Life<\/em> in minute detail, or spend weeks getting their <\/em>Stardew Valley<\/em> crop layout looking immaculate. The other just wants to pummel the car in <\/em>Street Fighter 2<\/em>, or punch their way to the center of the planet in Donkey Kong Bananza<\/em>. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n <\/p>\n If you\u2019re one of the latter, Virtue and a Sledgehammer<\/em> is an indie to watch this summer. You play as Pratelle in the narrative-driven experience, who\u2019s ruminating on her relationships with her mother Merche and sister Nina as she pummels her way through a town in rural Spain. The homes are now inhabited by a gaggle of block-headed robots \u2014 who are also very fun to punch \u2014 though you\u2019ll have to play the game yourself to discover how that happened. It\u2019s the latest collaboration from indie studios Deconstructeam and Selkie Harbour, and was recently picked as one of the Tribeca Festival\u2019s 2026 gaming selections. Deconstructeam\u2019s Jordi de Paco and Selkie Harbour\u2019s Guille Fernando spoke with Polygon on a video call about how Virtue and a Sledgehammer<\/em> evolved from a conceptual gameplay demo about the joy of destruction into something deeper.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There\u2019s something undeniably thrilling \u2014 even cleansing \u2014 about breaking stuff in video games. And unlike in real life, there\u2019s no risk of fatigue or possibly injuring yourself. \u201cYou are using your body to the maximum level, and then you get to break something, and there is also the potential of rebuilding what you are leaving behind,\u201d says Fernando. \u201cMaybe you’re building up the future in a way. It makes room for new things.\u201d<\/p>\n But in practice, Virtue and a Sledgehammer<\/em>\u2019s journey from concept to playable reality wasn\u2019t quite so romantic or philosophical. De Paco tells Polygon the initial prototype was just about the joy of destruction \u2014 they didn\u2019t necessarily have a story in mind. And the robots were there primarily because they were easier to replicate than individual human characters.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we have this playground, and we ask ourselves what kind of stories and what kind of narrative we can develop through this. And the most obvious answer was to talk about transhumanism, but we think that SOMA<\/em> already did that really well, so we wouldn’t want to do that again. So we kind of just used this as a foundation for feeling estranged from your origins, and we thought it worked really well,\u201d says de Paco.<\/p>\n Creating a narrative-driven experience that\u2019s all about destruction also presented some formidable technical challenges. \u201cThe structure has been the main challenge of the whole development,\u201d says Fernando. \u201cThe moment you can break everything, the level design becomes very complex, because how do you create interesting exploration? The direction we’ve gone is, if the player wants to just go from point A to B on a straight line, they can do it. But the game is constantly pulling your attention to different parts of the environment, so you want to destroy stuff and also see what’s going on. There is a dynamic narrative system that’s kind of emergent, depending on what the character does, and you see what the robots actually do and how they react against you. And it’s also a way of realizing who you are for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Virtue and a Sledgehammer<\/em> has an arresting aesthetic that\u2019s akin to a low-poly anxiety dream. According to de Paco, much of the game\u2019s look is a direct homage to two recent games. \u201cPart of it is thanks to the special framework that we have developed to make Unreal Engine games look not<\/em> like Unreal Engine,\u201d he explains. \u201cBut apart from that, we drew inspiration from two fronts: one is Alan Wake 2<\/em>, with the mix of the red lights and the deep green of the forest, and the second is Signalis<\/em>, which is an amazing example of low-poly aesthetics.\u201d<\/p>\n At a time when bland photorealism is increasingly becoming the default visual style for games, Deconstructeam and Selkie Harbour were passionate about giving their game a unique look. \u201cIt’s easier if you don’t have a big team,\u201d says Fernando. \u201cIt’s also less boring to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think we should kind of stop doing that, just for the sake of human lives,\u201d adds de Paco. \u201cI think a lot of people suffer trying to pursue this type of realism, and in the end, it doesn’t make [a game] better. It just makes it more realistic, which is not necessarily better than any kind of art direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, the folks working on a project where you beat countless robots into dust have some strong feelings about AI. And don\u2019t expect this game to be a both-sides meditation on the topic. \u201cThere are many questions posed by Virtue and a Sledgehammer<\/em>, but there are some moments in the game where we make clear that AI is not one of those questions. This is not a debate. AI sucks,\u201d says de Paco. \u201cWhy would we want to experience art by no one? I want to read things written by someone,<\/em> or any art made by someone with an intention. There’s a lot of communication involved in the process of actually making something. So if we remove that process, we lose all communication, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n That perspective is likely to resonate on this year\u2019s festival circuit. Virtue and a Sledgehammer<\/em> is one of 12 selections at this year\u2019s Tribeca Games Festival, which honors unreleased games for excellence in artistic storytelling. Tribeca has been an important springboard for indies, and previous selections include awards-season darlings like Despelote, Blue Prince, <\/em>and Thirsty Suitors. <\/em>For Fernando and Selkie Harbour, it\u2019s an early taste of global recognition. But for de Paco and his colleagues at Deconstructeam, it\u2019s been a longer road to get this level of attention.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve been making games for almost 15 years now, and we haven’t been recognized a lot in festivals or anything. I mean, laurels have always eluded us,\u201d says de Paco. \u201cSo to start seeing laurels in things we do makes me feel like: should we have been making 3D games all this time? It feels good to be playing with the adults now.\u201d<\/p>\n Virtue and a Sledgehammer<\/em> launches on Windows PC later this summer.<\/p>\n ![\"vaas_screenshot_04\"](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/vaas_screenshot_04.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
\n <\/picture>Image: Deconstructeam \/ Selkie Harbour \/ Devolver Digital<\/small><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"there-are-no-ghosts-at-the-grand-3\"](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/there-are-no-ghosts-at-the-grand-3.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=220&h=124&dpr=2\"\/)
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