Ville Kallio - Cruelty Squad

In Cruelty Squad, interdisciplinary artist Ville Kallio envisions a grotesque, low-resolution alternative reality where power, capital and ultra-violence are one and the same, where corporate liquidations involve quite literally liquifying employees and where bio-mechanical, drug-addled assassins are tasked with “performing wetworks” for despotic conglomerates. This is what Ville Kallio terms “an immersive power fantasy simulator with tactical stealth elements”, a first-person shooter in the style of classic late ’90s and early ’00s games such as Perfect Dark, Deus Ex and Quake, that draws aesthetically from a diverse collection of influences, including Super Mario 64, LSD Dream Emulator and Dark Souls. You play as an “emotionally dead combat-substance fuelled grunt” of the titular Cruelty Squad, a “depraved subsidiary company” headed up by the Corporate Arch Demoness. “Tired of your shit life? No hope no money?” asks Cruelty Squad. “Suffer no more. Make your own rules. Aspire, attain, accumulat