Hard Reset is a PC-exclusive FPS

First-person shooter

First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...

 from The Flying Wild Hog, a Polish developer that is made up from members of the team behind Painkiller (People Can Fly

People Can Fly

People Can Fly, Sp. z o.o. is a video game developer established in February 2002 by Adrian Chmielarz and based in Warsaw, Poland. Their first video game was Painkiller, but many of their members had already worked on various titles before this. Some members helped create 10 different titles since...

), and former developers from CD Projekt Red

CD Projekt

CD Projekt is a Polish video game publisher. The company was founded in May 1994 by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński. From the beginning their goal was to publish software in the Polish market on compact discs...

 and City Interactive

City Interactive

City Interactive is an international publisher and the largest Polish developer of computer and video games for platforms including Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS. The company was created in 2002 by combining a publishing house with two computer game developer studios. The...

.

The game features a cyberpunk

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...

 plot. It draws inspiration from William Gibson

William Gibson

William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...

, Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson

Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...

, and Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick

Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...

 (especially Blade Runner

Blade Runner

Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...

in story). In gameplay, Serious Sam

Serious Sam

Serious Sam is the first game in the Serious Sam series. It is a first-person shooter created by the Croatian development house Croteam...

is the main inspiration; explosive barrels and large hordes of enemies will be prominent within the game. There is no multiplayer.

Reception

Hard Reset was released on Steam on September 13, 2011 and received mixed to average reviews. Reviewers cited the visual quality and the intensity of the gameplay as strong points, evoking comparisons to other "oldschool" shooters as Serious Sam

Serious Sam

Serious Sam is the first game in the Serious Sam series. It is a first-person shooter created by the Croatian development house Croteam...

or Painkiller. Common points of contention were the game's relatively short length, and the perceived difficulty.