In short
With DIOXIDE, Byte Barrel is moving beyond the fast-paced action that defined Forgive Me Father, embracing a more deliberate approach to the first-person shooter. Combining tactical combat, soulslike influences, and survival mechanics, the upcoming game places players in an industrial dystopia where human life has become a corporate resource. Its ambition lies in bringing these systems together with a world whose themes extend beyond the battlefield.
In DIOXIDE, survival is more than a matter of ammunition and resources: it’s a struggle to reclaim your humanity in a world that has put a price on it.
Breaking new ground without losing sight of its roots, pushing beyond familiar territory without losing sight of the creative vision that shaped its previous work, and proving that an established formula can still evolve in meaningful ways. These are the challenges at the heart of DIOXIDE, the upcoming game from Polish studio Byte Barrel, the team behind Forgive Me Father and its sequel.
Having made a name for itself with fast-paced firefights, unsettling horror imagery, and a distinctive comic-book art style, Byte Barrel is now setting its sights on a different kind of experience. In DIOXIDE, gunplay remains a central pillar, but it is no longer the sole driving force. Tactical planning, resource management, and the consequences of the player’s decisions are poised to play a far more significant role, shifting the focus from pure firepower to a more measured approach to survival.
At its core, DIOXIDE is a tactical first-person shooter with soulslike elements, set in a dystopian society where human life is ultimately subject to the interests of a powerful Corporation. Its world is a decaying industrial nightmare, shaped by relentless exploitation, pervasive propaganda, and an unforgiving social order. Here, death is no longer necessarily the end. Instead, it becomes another mechanism through which the ruling power maintains its grip on those trapped beneath it.
That premise is reflected in one of the game’s most distinctive mechanics. When the protagonist dies, they can be brought back to life through a process of reprinting, turning death into a setback rather than a definitive end. The concept also reinforces the game’s bleak vision of a society in which human life has become replaceable. Survival, however, extends beyond the protagonist.
Players can establish a refuge and take in other survivors, introducing a responsibility that reaches beyond the next firefight. Gathering resources, protecting its inhabitants, and keeping the refuge operational add another dimension to the struggle, shifting part of the focus from defeating enemies to ensuring that others have a chance to survive.
This is where DIOXIDE could carve out its own identity. Rather than treating its dystopian setting as a backdrop for firefights, the game appears intent on translating its central themes into the mechanics that shape the player’s experience. The cycle of death and rebirth, the struggle to secure essential resources, and the burden of protecting others all speak to a world in which survival comes at a cost. For Byte Barrel, this marks a clear departure from the fast-paced action and immediate combat focus that defined its previous games, placing greater emphasis on strategy, resourcefulness, and the consequences of survival.
The concept is promising, but its success will ultimately depend on execution. Bringing tactical combat, soulslike influences, resource management, and refuge-building together into a cohesive experience is no small challenge. Each system must complement the others rather than pull the gameplay in competing directions, while the gunplay must retain the precision and immediacy expected of a first-person shooter. DIOXIDE will need to strike a careful balance between these ambitions, building on Byte Barrel’s established strengths while carving out an identity that sets it apart from the studio’s previous work.
A Different Kind of Shooter
To understand what makes DIOXIDE such a notable departure, it is worth revisiting the foundations of Byte Barrel’s creative identity. With Forgive Me Father and Forgive Me Father 2, the Polish studio carved out a distinctive place in the retro-inspired FPS landscape, blending old-school shooter sensibilities with an unmistakable visual style.
Fast-paced, aggressive combat, a strong emphasis on weapon-based action, and bold comic-book-inspired artwork became hallmarks of its games, creating an identity in which visual presentation was just as integral to the experience as the gunplay itself.
Lovecraftian creatures, grotesque imagery, and stylised violence were central to that identity, lending the games an atmosphere that extended well beyond their encounters with the enemy. With DIOXIDE, Byte Barrel retains its taste for dark, unsettling worlds but takes a markedly different approach to horror. Rather than placing supernatural threats and incomprehensible cosmic forces at the heart of the experience, the studio turns its attention to a dystopian society where exploitation, surveillance, and the subordination of the individual are woven into the fabric of everyday life.
The distinction goes beyond the setting. It also points to a different relationship between the player and the world they inhabit. The Forgive Me Father games thrive on momentum, rewarding aggression and the ability to fight through overwhelming opposition. DIOXIDE, by contrast, appears to place greater weight on preparation, tactical judgement, and the consequences of individual decisions. The emphasis is no longer solely on surviving the next firefight, but on understanding the conditions that make survival possible in the first place.
This change in direction is equally apparent in the game’s visual identity. In place of the earlier games’ stylised, comic-book-inspired presentation, DIOXIDE adopts a three-dimensional industrial setting shaped by imposing structures, decaying neighbourhoods, and the remnants of a society in decline. Its environments suggest a civilisation trapped within an economic machine of its own making, where industrial infrastructure and urban decay stand as reminders of a system that has placed productivity and control above human welfare.
The atmosphere remains bleak, and violence is still an essential part of the experience. What changes is the source of the horror. In DIOXIDE, the threat is not necessarily something beyond human understanding, but a system created by people and sustained at their expense. The result is a more grounded form of dystopian horror, rooted in institutional power, economic exploitation, and the reduction of human life to a resource that can be managed, consumed, and, ultimately, replaced.
For Byte Barrel, however, a broader design ambition also brings a more demanding set of challenges. Introducing tactical systems and additional layers of resource management risks disrupting the immediacy that has long been central to the studio’s shooters. These mechanics will need to complement the gunplay rather than compete with it, giving encounters greater strategic depth without sacrificing the responsiveness and sense of impact that define a satisfying FPS.
The Business of Being Human: Life, Death, and Power in DIOXIDE
In DIOXIDE, power is concentrated in the hands of a Corporation that has reshaped society around its own interests, reducing human beings to expendable parts in a vast industrial machine. Individuality and autonomy have little place in this order: a person’s worth is measured by their usefulness, while survival itself becomes subject to the demands of those who control the system.
Dystopian fiction has long grappled with the dehumanising effects of unchecked power, but DIOXIDE seeks to give this familiar premise a more tangible expression. Its central themes are woven into the mechanics of the experience, rather than confined to its narrative. The clearest example is the process that allows the protagonist to return from the dead, a concept that brings the Corporation’s disregard for human life into the very structure of the game.
In a society where people can be brought back through reprinting, death loses much of its finality, and the human body becomes something that can be reproduced to serve the needs of the system. Life itself is reduced to a matter of production and efficiency. Individual identity becomes secondary to the machinery that sustains the Corporation’s power, with human existence treated less as something inherently valuable than as a resource to be managed, replaced, and exploited.
This is where DIOXIDE‘s premise becomes particularly interesting. In video games, returning after death is an established convention, usually accepted as part of the medium’s underlying rules. Here, however, reprinting gives that familiar mechanic a clear thematic purpose.
The protagonist’s return is not simply a way to resume the adventure; it reflects a world in which the reproduction of human life has become an instrument of corporate control.
Yet the ability to return from death does not make the protagonist invulnerable, nor does it offer a straightforward path to freedom. Instead, this unusual condition appears to place them in direct opposition to the system, turning their very existence into a challenge to the established order. Survival thus acquires a significance beyond the immediate struggle to stay alive: it becomes an act of defiance against an authority that seeks to dictate the terms of human existence.
That tension provides a promising foundation for a story about self-determination. The protagonist’s struggle is not merely a fight against the forces standing in their way, but an attempt to reclaim ownership of a life that the Corporation treats as its own.
In this sense, the conflict at the heart of DIOXIDE extends beyond resistance to an oppressive regime to a more fundamental question: what does it mean to be free when even life itself can be controlled, replicated, and taken away by those in power?
Whether the game can fully realise this potential remains an open question. Its central conflict offers a strong starting point, but the distinction between a familiar dystopian premise and a genuinely compelling narrative will depend on how its themes unfold through the characters, the choices they face, and the consequences of their actions.
The challenge for Byte Barrel will be to give this struggle sufficient nuance, avoiding a simplistic clash between an all-powerful Corporation and an individual fighting to escape its grasp. If the narrative can match the ambition of its underlying concept, DIOXIDE could make its vision of corporate oppression more than a setting for its action, turning it into an integral part of the experience.
A World Worth Exploring, Not Just Fighting Through
In DIOXIDE, the city is more than a backdrop for the action; its architecture and infrastructure help convey the social inequalities that define its dystopian world. The urban landscape follows a clear hierarchy, with industrial complexes, underground sectors, and heavily monitored districts reflecting the different conditions imposed on those living under the Corporation’s rule.
At the bottom of this hierarchy lie neglected areas marked by urban decay and failing infrastructure, where the most vulnerable are left to survive amid deteriorating buildings and abandoned industrial spaces. Elsewhere, the Corporation’s authority is more overtly expressed through security forces, surveillance systems, and the mechanisms used to maintain order. The contrast between these environments suggests a society in which physical space mirrors social standing, and access to resources and decent living conditions is determined by one’s place within a rigid system of power.
This divide could give DIOXIDE‘s dystopian setting a stronger sense of place, making the inequalities that define its society visible in the city itself. Rather than relying solely on dialogue or exposition to explain how its society operates, DIOXIDE has the opportunity to communicate its underlying tensions through the world itself. Factories, neglected neighbourhoods, and surveillance infrastructure can all contribute to the narrative, revealing the structures of power and inequality through the way the city is built and how its different districts relate to one another.
The challenge lies in ensuring that this environmental storytelling works alongside the demands of a first-person shooter. Level design must balance atmosphere and exploration with the pace and clarity required by combat. Environments need to feel like believable parts of a larger urban landscape while providing well-designed spaces for encounters, movement, and tactical decision-making. Their layouts should encourage players to engage with their surroundings without allowing exploration to become little more than a means of moving between firefights.
If Byte Barrel can bring these elements together, the city could become one of DIOXIDE‘s most effective storytelling tools. Progress through its different sectors would offer more than a change of scenery, exposing the inequalities and contradictions that sustain the Corporation’s authority. The environments themselves could help establish the stakes of the protagonist’s struggle, grounding the game’s broader themes in the places where its inhabitants live, work, and fight to survive.
Achieving this, however, will require a convincing degree of environmental variety. A distinctive industrial aesthetic can establish a strong visual identity, but it risks losing its impact if districts begin to feel interchangeable or exploration offers little beyond a brief respite from combat.
Each area will need to have its own identity, both visually and functionally, with distinct layouts and environmental details that set one part of the city apart from another and give players a reason to explore beyond their immediate objectives.
How far DIOXIDE can take this approach remains to be seen. Further gameplay footage will be needed to evaluate the variety of its environments, the depth of its level design, and how exploration feeds into progression. The real test will be whether the city amounts to more than a setting for firefights, becoming an active part of the experience that allows players to discover the inequalities, systems of control, and power structures underpinning its dystopian world.
In DIOXIDE, Recklessness Could Be Your Biggest Enemy
The most significant shift in DIOXIDE lies in its approach to combat. Where Byte Barrel’s previous games leaned into fast-paced, aggressive gunplay, the studio is now looking to introduce a more measured, tactical style of play. Firearms remain at the core of the experience, but the influence of the soulslike genre points to a combat system built around careful decision-making, an awareness of the risks involved, and a more considered approach to every encounter.
This change could have a substantial impact on how players engage with the game’s world. Rather than relying on reflexes and sustained firepower alone, they will need to assess their surroundings, recognise the threats ahead, and make judicious use of their available resources.
The distinction is an important one. In a conventional, fast-paced FPS, aggression and momentum can often carry players through an encounter. A more deliberate system demands greater restraint, making the ability to recognise when to engage, when to adapt, and when to conserve resources an essential part of the experience. Rushing into a fight without considering its potential consequences could prove as costly as failing to react quickly enough.
Delivering on this premise, however, will require more than simply slowing the pace of combat or making encounters less forgiving. The underlying systems must give players meaningful reasons to vary their tactics, rewarding their ability to adapt rather than encouraging them to rely on a single, consistently effective approach. This is where weapon customisation could make a difference.
Byte Barrel has outlined a system that allows players to modify their firearms with modules and attachments, opening up the possibility of tailoring their arsenal to different situations and individual playstyles. Its effectiveness will ultimately depend on how substantially these modifications influence weapon behaviour and the tactical options available to the player.
There is a meaningful difference between an upgrade that simply increases a weapon’s effectiveness and one that changes how it is used. If different configurations encourage players to reconsider their approach to combat, customisation could become an important part of DIOXIDE‘s progression, giving them greater freedom to develop strategies suited to their preferences and the challenges they encounter. If the available modifications amount primarily to incremental statistical improvements, however, the system risks adding complexity without delivering much strategic depth. For customisation to matter, the choices players make must have consequences that extend beyond the numbers attached to their weapons.
The same principle applies to enemy design. The artificial security forces tasked with maintaining the Corporation’s grip on society fit naturally within DIOXIDE‘s industrial dystopia, reinforcing the relationship between its setting and the forces players must confront. Yet their narrative function will only take the combat so far. To sustain a tactical approach, enemies must offer more than variations on the same threat: their abilities, behaviour, and positioning should challenge players in different ways, forcing them to reassess their priorities and adapt their methods as encounters unfold.
Ultimately, the success of DIOXIDE‘s combat will depend on how effectively these elements work together. Weapon customisation, enemy variety, and resource management must form a coherent system in which preparation and tactical judgement are as consequential as accuracy and reflexes. That balance will be particularly important for a studio seeking to move beyond the relentless pace of its previous shooters without losing the immediacy that makes the genre compelling. If Byte Barrel can make its soulslike influences an integral part of the combat rather than an additional layer of difficulty, DIOXIDE could establish a distinct identity within the FPS genre. The question is whether its systems will offer enough depth to make that ambition work in practice.
When Can Players Get Their Hands on DIOXIDE?
DIOXIDE has yet to receive an official release date. The game is in development for PC and is already available to wishlist on Steam.
A demo was initially scheduled for the third quarter of 2026, but its release has yet to be confirmed, and the developers have not announced a new timeframe. Byte Barrel has also yet to reveal plans for other platforms, with no console versions announced to date. Further details on the game’s launch plans are expected in the future.
