Volume Download PC

Volume's gameplay has been designed by Bithell similar to the stealth elements of the Metal Gear Solid series. The game is presented in a top-down third-person view of the Volume simulation, showing a floor layout, Robert's avatar, and several guards and other antagonists that patrol the area. Several different variety of guards exist, each which have different patterns of movement and how they respond to seeing the player-character; such guards include archers that have a long range of vision, rogues that can see in a full circle around them, dogs that work by sense of smell and track the player by proximity, and automated turrets that react much faster than other guards. When spotted, the player has a short amount of time to attempt to break the line of sight and take cover, otherwise the simulation will restart, either fully or at the most recent checkpoint that the player has crossed. Guards will behave in established patterns, and the player can disrupt these by making noise, such as flushing a toilet, or purposely cross their line of sight to draw them away from a patrol route. The player is unable to kill these foes, but over the course of the story, gain an arsenal of tools to distract them and avoid detection; once the player has one or more such tools, they can create a loadout for their character to select which gadgets they wish to take into a level.

The goal is to sneak through the level without being spotted to complete various heists. En route, the player needs to collect gems that are scattered through the level before the exit point will become available. Players are tracking on global leaderboards based on how fast they completed a level, with the game allowing players to revisit earlier levels to improve their times.

The game contains 100 story-based levels. Additionally, the game includes a level editor, allowing users to create their own simulated missions. Players are required to complete their own levels before uploading them to be shared with others.

Development

Bithell's inspiration for Volume was directly from his earlier enjoyment of playing the Metal Gear games since a teenager. Though several other stealth games have come out since then, Bithell felt the newer games lost the "purity" of the stealth experience that Metal Gear provided.

The user-generation aspects for Volume were inspired by The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 that was on the Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance disc, during which Metal Gear' game designer, Hideo Kojima, designed prototypes of levels in real-life using Lego bricks. Bithell designed the in-game level editor to work similar to Lego, allowing the player to snap-in predesigned elements onto new or existing levels, including the game's core levels. Bithell hopes that Volume will have an active user-community that will continue to evolve the game over many years, similar to that of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines where the player community has continued to work on improving the game five years after release.

Bithell expected that Volume will still have a limited budget, GB£30,000 compared to the GB£5,000 he needed for Thomas Was Alone, but the extra funding has been used to hire additional programming help and 3D modelers. On the New Years of 2014, Bithell had to be taken to a hospital due to overworking himself on Volume. Following his treatment, he opted to bring on more staff to help complete the more-ambitious title, with a 15-man team by the game's completion. Some included his former colleagues at Blitz Games, where he had worked during the development of Thomas Was Alone, and additional help came from members of Curve Digital who had previously ported Thomas to the PlayStation platforms. David Housden, who composed the Thomas soundtrack, will also create the music for Volume.

Reception

Volume received mostly positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Microsoft Windows version 78.40% based on 21 reviews and 80/100 based on 33 reviews and the PlayStation 4 version 71.67% based on 12 reviews and 71/100 based on 15 reviews.