Aussie point & click adventure The Drifter is releasing soon

Australian point & click adventure The Drifter is finally launching on PC on the 17th of July.

Developed by two-person Melbourne-based studio, Powerhoof, The Drifter is a pixel-art adventure game that follows a drifter uncovering a web of corporations, conspiracy and murder. A Nintendo Switch version of the game is also in development and set to be released later this year.

The Drifter has been in development since 2017, starting as a side project before entering full production in 2021. It has also been showcased at PAX Australia in 2019 and 2023, and during the latter, it was a winner in the PAX Indie Showcase. The game takes a modern revival approach to the point & click adventure genre, with a focus on narrative and controls able to be played with a controller as well as a keyboard.

It follows the player as Mick Carter, a drifter moving from job to job who witnesses a violent murder and is then killed by high-tech soldiers, only for him to mysteriously be revived. Mick is framed for the killing and must go on the run, both from the law and a supernatural force that seemingly followed him back from death. The Drifter’s aesthetic and narrative draw heavily on the works of Stephen King, John Carpenter and Michael Crichton, as well as the 70s Ozploitation cinema movement.

Powerhoof previously released Crawl, a dungeon crawler where the players control the monsters, Regular Human Basketball, a multiplayer sports game and a myriad of smaller titles that can be found on their Itch.io page. Checkpoint Gaming has also previously interviewed the developer on our radio show and podcast, where they talked about The Drifter and point & click adventure games more broadly.

To coincide with this announcement, a demo is now available on Steam ahead of its participation in Steam Next Fest, running from June 9 to June 16, that features the game’s first full chapter.