Armatus: Counterplay Games’ Studio Head Ming Zhang Breaks Down the Roguelite Shooter
Counterplay Games studio head Ming Zhang sat down with Shacknews to walk through the design of Armatus, the studio’s upcoming third-person roguelite shooter, ahead of its 2026 launch. Shacknews’ Greg Burke caught up with Counterplay Games CEO Ming Zhang to discuss his team’s work on the game, which is set to release later this year. The conversation, filmed with gameplay footage from a Shacknews staffer, is the studio’s most detailed public breakdown yet of a project that emerged from years of uncertainty about Counterplay’s future.
What Shacknews’ Ming Zhang Interview Reveals About Armatus
The interview with Ming Zhang covers a lot of what audiences can expect in Armatus, including the decision to give the game an urban fantasy setting and how that influences gameplay. The video also includes gameplay footage as a Shacknews senior editor plays through a demo of the title. It’s the latest in a string of public appearances for Zhang, who has been the face of Armatus since its reveal, fronting press releases, hands-on previews and now a dedicated developer sit-down.
Armatus itself is described on its own storefront listing as a third-person roguelite shooter set in the demon-infested ruins of Paris, where players take on the last supernatural warrior of an ancient order, armed with powerful firearms and celestial powers, scouring the city in search of a lost gateway to heaven called the Sunless Gate. The premise builds on a cataclysm that has already consumed the city: humanity’s time is over, demons overrun once busy streets as reality unravels, and the last survivors are sequestered behind holy wards, believing themselves the only humans left alive.
Guns, Celestial Powers and a Godfall Pedigree
Armatus was first unveiled on November 20, 2025 during an Xbox Partner Preview showcase, published in partnership with Fictions. In the accompanying press release, Zhang explained the combat philosophy behind the project: “With Armatus, we wanted our gameplay to be a blend of modern firearms and supernatural powers, plus a little melee for good measure. By layering in dynamic build choices for each run, we’ve created the frenetic, hyperkinetic combat that really defines our gameplay.”
Fictions producer Kelsey Hansen echoed that enthusiasm at the reveal, saying the publisher was “so thrilled to be working with Ming and the talented team at Counterplay Games to help them bring Armatus to life,” adding that the game is “full of intense, fast-paced combat that truly feels incredible in your hands.” Counterplay is best known for Godfall, the 2020 looter-slasher that launched alongside the PlayStation 5, and Armatus marks a deliberate genre pivot away from that game’s melee-only loot structure toward gunplay layered with supernatural abilities.
Roguelite Runs Through the Scoured Path
Hands-on impressions from Summer Game Fest 2026 give a clearer picture of how that combat translates to a run-based structure. GamingTrend’s preview, based on time with the Switch 2 build and conversation with Zhang, described the game as a third-person urban-fantasy roguelite that feels like the team took everything they learned through the life of Godfall and honed it to a razor’s edge — loud, fast, stylish, grounded, and unabashedly focused on combat expression.
According to that same preview, Counterplay is building risk-reward systems directly into each run: the studio is building systems that let players raise the stakes mid-run, offering a tradeoff before entering a new area — take a reward but accept a penalty, or increase the overall difficulty for better loot, pushing your luck for a boon at great cost or playing it safe and losing out on a weapon that might turn the tide. That loop sits inside the game’s procedurally shifting route through the city, nicknamed the Scoured Path by the developer, where enemy placement, loot and room layouts change on every attempt.
From Shutdown Rumors to a Steam Next Fest Demo
Armatus’s existence answers a question that hung over Counterplay for the better part of a year. In January 2025, a LinkedIn post from an employee at NetEase-owned Jackalyptic Games suggested Counterplay had been disbanded after a joint project fell through, with the post stating the team put their shoulders to the wheel like it was their baby, before the partnership couldn’t continue into the new year and CPG was disbanded. Video Games Chronicle noted at the time that Counterplay had been hiring back in 2022 for an unannounced co-operative action fantasy shooter, and currently had no open positions on its website.
The studio never issued a formal statement on those closure reports, but the Armatus reveal months later effectively answered them. Since then, Counterplay has kept up a steady drip of visibility: a playable demo went live on Steam during Steam Next Fest in February 2026, drawing what the studio’s own social channels described as an enthusiastic early community response, followed by the Summer Game Fest showing and now the Shacknews sit-down.
Where and When Australian and Kiwi Players Can Jump In
Armatus is confirmed for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, with the Xbox version available day one with Xbox Game Pass on Series X|S, Xbox on PC and Xbox Cloud. That day-one Game Pass slot matters for the region’s subscriber base, since it lets Australian and New Zealand players try the roguelite loop without a separate purchase the moment it lands.
No exact release date or local pricing has been locked in yet beyond a 2026 window, with the Summer Game Fest preview pointing toward a winter launch. Given Counterplay’s near-miss with closure just eighteen months ago, the amount of hands-on coverage and developer access Armatus has already generated suggests the studio is treating this comeback title as its make-or-break follow-up to Godfall.
Join the Conversation