ZIQ runs from the swarm this August on PC and Mac

Today, Midnight Sea and 3D Realms announced that its sci-fi runner ZIQ will be available on PC and Mac on August 1. The game will task players with helping the titular character survive waves of deadly obstacles controlled by the malicious AI Swarm.

Swarm, an ancient AI turned malevolent and spiteful is waging a war on all life. Having narrowly escaped complete destruction at the hands of organics he both hates and fears them. The AI grows massive, devouring entire planets to fuel and construct his unstoppable armies in an unending vendetta against organic life. Swarm’s armies of nanoform soldiers fair no better. The prototype Z series IQ nanite (ZIQ) is currently being put through countless experiments to improve the soldier’s neural network.

These torturous tests take the form of treacherous obstacle courses that ZIQ must complete. With nanoforms’ ability to endless reconstruct, death offers no respite. With more than 25 obstacles and hundreds of possible combinations he faces a difficult journey. But his ability to switch polarity at any time gives players the edge needed to succeed across seven themed procedurally-generated stages filled with traps such as pools of acid beneath sinking floors, pop-up walls that appear at the last second, and polarized obstacles that can only be survived by quickly swapping polarities.

Crafty players can collect charge cores to complete a sequence for extra points. If these sequences are chained together seven times ZIQ becomes Overcharged and can destroy those pesky polarity traps for additional points by opposing their polarity. Nabbing pickups at just the right time (ranging from good to perfect) affords even more points. Climb up the global leaderboard on the pile of nanites left behind with each excruciating death!

ZIQ will retail at $9.99 on Steam for PC and Mac. Stay tuned for more news here on Gaming Trend.