Liquid Swords, the studio founded by Just Cause creator Christofer Sundberg, launches its debut game Samson: A Tyndalston Story on PC this Wednesday, April 8. Priced at $25, it is a compact open-world crime game that draws obvious GTA comparisons, and Sundberg is not exactly shying away from them. The launch trailer is already out and the game hits Steam and the Epic Games Store at 6 AM PT on April 8.
A crime story built around debt, not firepower
The setup is lean and mean. You play as Samson, a man described as someone who "learned violence before he learned mercy." A heist goes wrong, mobsters take his sister as collateral, and now Samson owes a debt with a ticking clock. Miss a payment deadline and the interest compounds. It is a structure that keeps pressure on the player without needing a sprawling 100-hour narrative to do it.
Here's the thing: Samson has no guns. That is a deliberate design choice, not a budget limitation. Instead, the game gives players access to weaponized cars and more than 25 upgrades spread across brawling and driving skills. The world features multiple open-world districts, and NPCs track your behavior across sessions, meaning the city reacts to your reputation over time.
What Liquid Swords had to cut to ship this game
The road to launch was not smooth. In February 2025, Liquid Swords laid off roughly half its development team. Sundberg said the cuts forced the studio to pull back on more ambitious RPG systems that were originally planned for Samson. "We just shelved those features and saved them for the next game, depending on the success of this," Sundberg said. "A lot of those more heavy RPG systems sit there waiting to get back into the game."
That context matters for setting expectations. Samson is not the game Liquid Swords originally envisioned, and Sundberg is upfront about it. The studio describes itself as "no-nonsense," with Sundberg arguing that modern game development has become overwhelmed by distractions that hurt quality and motivation. Whether that philosophy produced something worth playing is the question April 8 will answer.
Sundberg's case for a smaller open world
Sundberg has a clear pitch for why a smaller GTA-style game has a place in the market right now, especially with GTA 6 confirmed for May 26, 2026 and carrying the weight of a decade of anticipation behind it.
"There are times when you want to put GTA down and pick up something else," Sundberg said. "I see Samson as being like back in the day when action movies were 90 minutes long, not over two hours. I keep going back to watching Die Hard and Ronin and First Blood and Rambo. I think there's a space for us there."
The analogy is apt. A $25 game with a focused story, a debt mechanic that creates urgency, and no pretense of being a 60-hour sandbox is a different proposition than what Rockstar is building. Samson is not competing with GTA 6 so much as filling the gap before it arrives, and possibly the gap that exists for players who want something tighter after it does.
For players who want to go deeper on open-world crime games before GTA 6 drops, the latest gaming guides on our site are worth a look. Samson: A Tyndalston Story is available in a standard edition at $25 and a $30 Supporter Edition that includes the soundtrack, wallpapers, concept art, and a 3D printable model of Samson. No console version has been announced. Make sure to check out more:
