Bugsnax, the delightful if slightly disturbing puzzle-adventure game for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, was once apparently going to be much, much more disturbing. It turns out one of the original plans for the adorable looking game was to have an ending that featured full on zombie cannibalism.
For the uninitiated, Bugsnax finds the player hunting for half-snack, half-bug creatures on Snaktooth, a magical island that contains many hidden secrets. Players take control of a journalist travelling to the island to document the strange Bugsnax phenomenon, and things get even stranger from there; eventually branching out into either a good ending or a bad ending.
In an interview with Kotaku, however, Bugsnax’s senior creative director and writer Kevin Zuhn revealed that the development team's plans for the bad ending was once going to feature a much darker conclusion to the story. The plan revealed by Zuhn was to have all the Grumpuses, the Muppet-like characters in the Bugsnax world, begin eating one another. They would then turn and start to eat the Grumpus controlled by the player throughout the disarmingly cute game. This is, of course, much darker than any of the game's current endings, all of which depend on several factors such as how many Grumpuses the player can keep alive.
Considering many early speculations for the game included the theory that Bugsnax might secretly have been a horror game, news of the developer’s twisted original plans may come as little surprise to those who have already spent a few hours roaming around Snaktooth Island. One thing is certain, things are definitely not what they appear to be on the surface.
A lot of people on the internet have continued putting forth theories about Bugsnax many story threads, but it seems no one expected any of them to end with Grumpus on Grumpus carnage. Whether the zombie storyline will come into play in any future DLC for the game is uncertain, but Zuhn does mention in the interview that he and the team are not done with their work on Snaktooth Island just yet.
Zombie apocalypse or not, there are still many secrets left to be discovered in Young Horses and Fangamer’s Bugsnax, even for players who have beaten the game. From catching the plentiful Bugsnax on the island to discovering the elusive Snaxsquatch, players with an aversion to cannibalism will be happy to know it’s not part of the game. Yet.
Bugsnax is out now for PC, PS4, and PS5.
Source: Kotaku