What happens when survival becomes government policy, and the horrors of an alternate Cold War refuse to stay buried? Trox The Reversal, a first-person, story-driven horror game from Trojan Productions, begins with a nuclear catastrophe and follows an army officer searching for his missing family.
In this original seven-question written interview for Coloured Static Press, co-founders Vinil Verghese and Sushant Devadhe explain the inspirations behind the Sustainable Meat Act, the challenge of building believable human horror, and what they have learned from the public demo.
Interview questions from Coloured Static Press; responses by Vinil Verghese and Sushant Devadhe, reproduced from their supplied interview document in their own words. The publicly available demo is approximately 30–40 minutes. The full PC game is planned for December 2026, according to the developers. This is a developer interview, not a hands-on review. Content warning: discussion of cannibalism, war, death and disturbing horror themes.
The full developer interview
1. What first inspired Trox The Reversal, and why did you choose an alternate Cold War that ends in nuclear catastrophe as the foundation for its horror?
The idea started with a discussion about exploring something disturbing, but something that could still feel realistic. We were reading about the Cold War, and the Russia Ukraine war also became an important influence on how we thought about the story. It made us think about how quickly things that once seemed unimaginable can become part of everyday life, and how people eventually learn to live with them.
We wanted to explore that idea in Trox The Reversal. What if something as disturbing as cannibalism became an accepted part of society, with laws built around it? How would humanity survive, and what would happen to civilization if the world reached that point? These questions, along with the idea of a nuclear conflict escalating beyond control, gradually shaped the world of the game.
2. The Sustainable Meat Act is a deeply disturbing idea. What interests you about presenting cannibalism as government policy, and how do you explore its moral and social consequences without relying solely on shock value?
We wanted to explore a world where survival becomes more important than anything else, even the values and rules that hold a society together. In the game’s alternate history, nuclear destruction has devastated the USSR, damaged the soil, pushed animal life close to extinction and made growing food extremely difficult. With countries focused on securing their own resources rather than helping others, food shortages reach a point where the country’s survival itself is at stake.
That’s where the Sustainable Meat Act came in. We started asking what a government might do if it believed this was the only way to keep its people alive. Cannibalism becomes legal, not because society has suddenly accepted it morally, but because people are desperate to survive and have very few alternatives.
We also wanted to explore how a system like this would affect different sections of society. Even when everyone is struggling to survive, the rich and powerful often have ways to protect themselves that ordinary people don’t. The Act gave us a way to explore that inequality alongside the darker choices people and governments might make when survival becomes their biggest concern.
3. Players follow Marco, an army officer searching for his missing family. How does his personal story guide the way players uncover this world, and what did you want them to feel about him?
We wanted to use Marco’s personal story as a way to explore the larger world of Trox The Reversal. He is an army officer who has spent years following orders and being part of the system because it also provides a certain level of protection for his family. He has an idea of the things happening around him, but as long as the system is not directly affecting him, he chooses to look the other way.
Things change when he is suspended from duty over serious allegations and his family gets caught up in the consequences. When he returns to find his sister missing and later discovers that his own family has disappeared, he is forced to confront a system he once served. His search becomes personal, but it also leads him to uncover things about the world that he had previously ignored.
We never really wanted Marco to be a straightforward hero. He is a flawed character who has made his own choices and benefited from the same system he now finds himself fighting against. We wanted players to understand his desperation while also questioning his decisions. Through his journey, we explore both the world falling apart around him and what happens when the problems you’ve ignored finally reach your own doorstep.
4. How do you balance environmental storytelling, exploration and moments of fear in a first person horror experience? Are there particular details players should pay attention to in the demo?
Most of the game takes place underground because we wanted to show the extent of the nuclear devastation. Living in bunkers and shelters is not really a choice for people anymore. It is something they are forced to do to survive while the world above recovers. We have tried to reflect that through the environments, keeping them dark, claustrophobic and a little chaotic. Different locations also have their own character, and we use them to tell parts of the story without having to explain everything directly to the player.
For the horror, we wanted to focus more on the darker side of human nature and what people are capable of doing when society breaks down. The atmosphere and tension play a big role, but we have also included disturbing creatures and some jump scares to keep players on edge. There is more happening beneath the surface of the Sustainable Meat Act than people might initially expect.
In the demo, I would especially encourage players to read the medical notes they come across. They offer some insight into what was happening behind the scenes under the Act. We wanted to show that it was not simply about making cannibalism legal. Much darker things were taking place, things that society would probably never have accepted under normal circumstances. The situation had reached a point where the usual boundaries no longer seemed to matter.
5. The public demo is approximately 30 to 40 minutes. What did you most want to demonstrate in that slice of the game, and what are you hoping to learn from player feedback ahead of release?
When we planned the demo, we wanted to give players a properly paced experience rather than simply taking the first 30 minutes of the game. The opening takes some time to build momentum, so we chose a section from further into the story, where Marco is already searching for his family and getting closer to finding answers. This allowed us to give players a better idea of the game’s atmosphere, gameplay and storytelling within around 40 minutes.
We also wanted to see how people would respond to the overall visual style. We have used a 4:3 aspect ratio with a VHS inspired look and added visual noise to give the game an older, distinct feel. It was important for us to understand whether players connected with this approach and enjoyed the world we were building.
The response so far has been encouraging. We have watched gameplay videos and players’ reactions, and the ending of the demo has been particularly interesting to see people react to. We also received some feedback about performance during the more action heavy sections, which we have been working to improve. Overall, the demo has helped us understand what players enjoy about the game and where we can make things better before release.
6. What have been the biggest technical or creative challenges for Trojan Productions while building the game, particularly in bringing an ambitious alternate history setting to life as an independent team?
One of our biggest technical priorities has been optimization. We want Trox The Reversal to run well on a wide range of PCs, including lower end systems. Our target is to achieve around 60 FPS on a GTX 1050 with 8 GB of RAM. Some sections have a lot of NPCs moving around and interacting with the environment, so making sure these areas run smoothly has been a challenge.
Creatively, the biggest challenge has been building horror around situations that feel believable. Since we are focusing on human horror rather than supernatural elements, we cannot rely on ghosts or scares that appear out of nowhere without context. We have to find ways to make situations disturbing while ensuring they fit naturally into the world. Maintaining that balance between fiction and realism while writing the story has also been challenging.
As an independent team, getting a project of this scale together with limited resources has its own difficulties. Fortunately, everyone brings different technical skills and knowledge to the table, and most of us handle multiple responsibilities. That has helped us solve problems across different areas and keep the development moving forward.
7. With a December 2026 PC release planned, what would you most like players to take away from Trox The Reversal when they reach the end, beyond the immediate scares?
One of the main things we want players to take away is that, while the world of Trox The Reversal might seem unrealistic at first, the events of the last few years have shown us how quickly things can change in ways we never expected. We wanted to explore how something that once seemed impossible can gradually become normal, and how society can adapt to terrible circumstances simply because people have to find a way to survive.
We also wanted to show that horror does not always need supernatural elements to work. Sometimes, the most disturbing things come from humans, the situations they find themselves in, and what they are capable of doing to survive. That is something we have tried to explore through the creatures, environments and overall atmosphere of the game.
For us at Trojan Productions, this is our first major commercial IP on a platform like Steam, so we want to give it our best. We have learned a lot throughout development, and our priority has been to focus on quality and make the best game we can with the resources we have. We hope this experience helps us grow as developers and build even better games in the future.
Explore Trox The Reversal
The public Windows PC demo is available through the official Steam demo page. Trojan Productions has described December 2026 as its planned full-game release window, rather than a confirmed launch date. You can also explore other Coloured Static Press developer interviews.
Original questions and layout by Coloured Static Press. All answers are from the supplied co-founder interview document. Press-kit imagery is used with the developer’s express editorial permission. The studio supplied no fee or obligation to publish a positive verdict. This interview does not represent a review or hands-on assessment of the full game.