An animated series based on Dave Cook and Craig Paton’s cyberpunk comic book series Killtopia is being developed by Voltaku — a new hybrid studio specializing in virtual production and game engines — as its very first project.
Per Flickering Myth, Voltaku’s Killtopia will be written by Phil Gelatt (Love, Death & Robots, Rise of the Tomb Raider) and directed by Ruairi Robinson (The Last Days on Mars, Europa Report). The series is being made using the Unreal Engine and will consist of eight episodes, which will run for 20 minutes each. Cook revealed on Kickstarter that he and Paton initially sold the television rights to Killtopia back in 2019.
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“Game engines are giving studios a flexibility we’ve never seen before,” Voltaku co-founder and CEO Charles Borland said in a statement. “When we option a project, it doesn’t have to stop with a movie or a TV series anymore. We can take our 3D production assets and build a game, VR/AR experiences, marketing materials, digital goods, basically anything we want, at The Lion King or Avatar-like production levels. And that’s exactly what ‘otaku’ are looking for — more ways to engage with the worlds they love.”
Killtopia follows Shinji “Slugger” Kamiya — a salvage hunter living in a mega-city in future Japan — and his robot sidekick, Crash. Shinji is a rookie member of the Wreckers, a mercenary group that is paid to hunt the killer mechs running amok in the city’s Sector K district. In a chance encounter, Shinji meets Crash — the world’s first sentient mech — whose code could hold the key to curing the deadly nano-plague known as The Rot, which Shinji’s sister suffers from. On their quest to cure the disease, Shinji and Crash are hunted by Wreckers, android killers and Yakuza gangs. “Shinji wants to save his sister. Crash wants to be more than a machine. They both want to make it out alive,” an official synopsis reads.
Killtopia Vol. 1 was originally published on Sept. 3, 2018 after being successfully funded on Kickstarter. Following a second successful campaign, Vol. 2 arrived on April 15, 2020. A Kickstarter campaign for Killtopia Vol. 3 was launched in October of 2020. It blew past its initial goal of £7,000 GBP and raised £21,556. An update posted by Cook on March 20 explains that Vol. 3 is finished and will begin shipping soon.
Based on the comic book series of the same name by Dave Cook and Craig Paton, Voltaku’s Killtopia is written by Phil Gelatt and directed by Ruairi Robinson.
Source: Flickering Myth
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