Growing a backbone

Nekki's Dmitry Pimenov on how you're being empowered in cyberpunk superhero beat-'em-up Spine

We’re big fans of action movies,” says Dmitry Pimenov, Nekki COO and Spine producer, when we ask about the studio’s shift from making mobile fighting games (it’s responsible for the Shadow Fight series) to its new console and PC single-player character action brawler. “We were thinking a lot about gun-fu movies, from Equilibrium and John Woo to John Wick and The Matrix and everything,” he continues.

It’s not often that devs bring up Equilibrium (the infamous 2002 flick starring Christian Bale and Sean Bean – which is well worth an inebriated watch). But watching early footage, we can see it. Protagonist Redline dishes out high kicks to the face, dodges by launching into a horizontal spin, sprays graffiti in security guards’ faces for good measure, and, of course, shoots hot lead from her pistols between all that.