Samson and the Fight Against Formulaic Crime Games

Samson is a mid-budget crime game from Liquid Swords, the studio led by Cristofer Sundberg, co-creator and former creative lead on the Just Cause series. On paper, it looks like another gritty urban sandbox about guns, cars, and criminal ambition. In practice, it is framed by its creator as something else: a deliberate pushback against what he sees as the “crap” the wider games industry serves to players—bloated budgets, safe design, and focus-grouped formulas.

This article explores how Samson came to be, what it’s trying to do differently, and why its existence matters even if its reception has been mixed. It’s less a celebration of a flawless game and more a case study in how one veteran designer is reacting to an industry he no longer recognizes.

From Explosive Sandboxes to a Scrappy Crime Thriller

To understand Samson’s goals, it helps to know where its lead creator is coming from. Cristofer Sundberg co-founded Avalanche Studios, where he helped shape the Just Cause games into over-the-top open-world playgrounds. Those games became known for:

• Huge maps filled with destructible structures and vehicles
• Physics-driven chaos and stunt systems
• A bombastic tone that never took itself too seriously

Over time, however, Avalanche grew into a large multi-project company. Like many AAA studios, it had to juggle publisher expectations, big budgets, and the pressure to constantly chase growth. This isn’t unique: analysis of major game studios shows that the cost of AAA development and marketing has spiraled, with budgets for top-tier games often reaching well over $100 million when all spending is included.¹ That economic reality tends to push studios toward safer, more predictable choices.

Sundberg eventually left that environment and founded Liquid Swords, a smaller studio focused on building action games with a leaner scope. Samson is the team’s first major release and, by his own description, a kind of statement about what he thinks game development should look like when it’s not trying to please every possible audience.

What Samson Actually Is: Setting, Structure, and Core Loop

Samson takes place in a fictional city where the player returns home saddled with a massive debt. The basic premise is straightforward: use whatever means you can—usually illegal—to pull together enough cash to keep your creditors at bay and gradually wrest control of the streets.

The Daily Pressure of Debt

Unlike sprawling crime epics that revolve around long campaign arcs, Samson’s structure is built around daily financial pressure. Each in-game day, the player has to meet or exceed a money quota. Failing to do so doesn’t instantly end the game, but it ramps up the pressure by increasing interest and tightening the noose around the protagonist.

This loop is designed to keep players in a constant state of hustle, forcing decisions like:

• Do you take a risky, high-paying job that could attract heat?
• Do you focus on safer but smaller gigs to slowly chip away at what you owe?
• Do you invest in gear or upgrades now, or hold onto cash to avoid missing your quota?

That debt mechanic echoes real-world financial stress, though in an exaggerated, cinematic way. Rising household indebtedness and interest burdens are well documented in many economies, and the anxiety they produce is not far removed from the in-game pressure Samson leverages for tension.²

Compact City, Focused Roles

Rather than a giant map filled with dozens of systems, Samson aims for a more concentrated urban space. The player is primarily a getaway driver and small-time fixer: ferrying clients, moving illicit goods, and occasionally engaging in shootouts and brawls when deals go south.

Key features include:

• Driving-heavy missions that emphasize route planning and fast reactions
• Gunfights and melee combat in tight spaces rather than large-scale firefights
• Simple economic decisions about how to spend or stash cash earned each day

The resulting experience is more intimate and arguably more repetitive than sprawling crime games, but it’s also more tightly centered on the pressure-cooker debt premise.

Designing Against the Grain: A Reaction to the AAA Machine

Sundberg has described Samson as a response to what he sees as unhealthy trends in modern game development: ballooning budgets, endless content checklists, and a reluctance to take real creative risks. Those criticisms are echoed by many industry observers and analysts.

The Cost of Playing It Safe

Industry reports show that development costs for mainstream console and PC games have steeply increased as production values, team sizes, and technology expectations rise.¹ With more money at stake, publishers often push for:

• Sequel-driven portfolios built on established IPs
• Convergent design where many games share similar open worlds, crafting systems, and achievement loops
• Heavy reliance on metrics and trend analysis to minimize perceived risk

In that climate, experimental mid-sized games can be hard to fund. Studios and investors are wary of projects that don’t clearly fit a known formula or monetization model. Sundberg’s answer with Samson was to deliberately aim under the AAA tier: keep scope modest, budget smaller, and accept rough edges in exchange for creative independence.

Rejecting Excess for a Smaller, Sharper Vision

Instead of sprawling feature lists, Samson focuses on a few pillars:

• A clear narrative hook (one man, one crushing debt)
• Driving and short, intense missions over massive open-world wandering
• Comic-book-inspired visual flair rather than photorealistic detail

This strategy resembles the growing interest in “AA” games—mid-budget titles that prioritize a recognizable identity over sheer scale. Analysts have observed that this tier can provide valuable variety in the market even if it can’t match AAA polish.³

Samson’s development story, then, isn’t just about one game. It’s about a veteran designer deciding that chasing perfection in a risk-averse environment is less interesting than building something smaller, more personal, and more divisive.

Samson’s Rough Edges: Reception, Friction, and Trade-offs

Early coverage and video impressions of Samson describe a game with a strong concept but uneven execution. Criticisms tend to fall into a few buckets:

• Combat feel: Some players and critics note that gunplay and melee fights lack weight and responsiveness.
• AI behavior: Enemies and civilians can feel lifeless or predictable, undermining the fantasy of a living, dangerous city.
• Repetition: Mission structures often lean heavily on similar driving and combat setups.
• Technical roughness: Bugs, glitches, and rough edges typical of smaller productions are present.

These flaws matter, especially when players compare Samson directly to bigger-budget crime games with more refined systems and extensive QA resources. At the same time, they highlight the core tension: trying to make a distinctive game on a modest budget while pushing back against industry norms nearly guarantees some roughness.

Player Expectations vs. Creator Intent

One of the underlying issues is expectation management. Many players implicitly measure any crime-themed open-city game against blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto V, which benefited from years of refinement and an enormous budget. That benchmark is difficult, if not impossible, for a mid-sized team to match.

Yet the presence of imperfections doesn’t make Samson uninteresting. In some ways, its imperfections are part of the point: a reminder that not every game has to hit a hyper-polished, lowest-common-denominator standard to be worth talking about.

Table: Samson vs. the Typical AAA Crime Sandbox

Why Samson Matters Even If You Never Play It

Whether you personally enjoy Samson or not, it stands as an example of a few important trends and questions within the industry.

1. The Role of Mid-Tier Experiments

As production values rise, so does the risk that only massive franchises and tiny indie games can survive, leaving little room for mid-sized experiments. Yet these “AA” titles often provide:

• Fresh tonal and mechanical ideas that AAA projects wouldn’t risk
• Shorter, more focused experiences suited for players who can’t commit to 100-hour epics
• Opportunities for teams to test new concepts before scaling them up

Samson fits into that experimental mid-tier. Its approach to debt pressure and day-to-day grind within a crime setting is unusual, and that alone makes it part of a broader conversation about what kinds of stories games can tell.

2. Creators Pushing Back Against Industry Norms

Sundberg isn’t the first veteran to leave a major studio and critique aspects of AAA development. Various interviews with established developers echo concerns about burnout, crunch, and the constant race toward higher fidelity and bigger worlds.⁴ Samson is one concrete result of that pushback: a game intentionally built outside the traditional big-budget ecosystem.

By accepting the possibility of a mixed reception but insisting on creative control, the project embodies a philosophy that values experimentation over guaranteed mass appeal. Whether or not Samson fully succeeds on its own terms, that stance matters for the health of the medium.

3. Player Appetite for Imperfect but Distinct Games

There’s also a question for players: is there room in your library for games that are interesting but undeniably flawed? Streaming platforms and digital storefronts have increased access to a huge variety of games, but they’ve also intensified competition for attention. Many players gravitate toward the safest bets: massive franchises or highly praised indie hits.

Samson tests whether a game can stand out by attitude and premise rather than polish alone. If players signal that there’s an audience for smaller, riskier crime games—even ones that stumble—publishers may be more willing to fund similar projects in future.

Tips for Approaching Samson on Its Own Terms

If you’re considering trying Samson, it’s helpful to go in with realistic expectations and a mindset tuned to what the game is actually trying to deliver.

• Expect a compact experience: The city is relatively small, and mission variety is narrower than in massive open-world titles.
• Embrace the grind: The core loop revolves around repeating daily hustles to manage debt, so repetition is part of the design, not a bug.
• Focus on the tension: Let the daily quotas and rising interest shape how you role-play the protagonist’s desperation.
• Be patient with jank: Some systems and animations may feel rough compared with AAA productions; this is a mid-budget game.

If those trade-offs sound unappealing, Samson may not be for you. But if you’re curious about how a seasoned designer responds to a changing industry, it can be an intriguing, if uneven, case study you can actually play.

Frequently Asked Questions About Samson

Is Samson an open-world game?

Samson offers an open-city structure, but on a smaller scale than typical AAA crime sandboxes. You can drive around, pick up jobs, and explore, yet the design is more tightly focused on daily missions and debt management than on sprawling exploration.

How is Samson different from Just Cause?

While both games share a background in action design, they target very different experiences. Just Cause focuses on massive maps, explosive stunts, and chaotic destruction. Samson is more grounded, centered on a debt-driven crime story, with tighter spaces and a more intimate, gritty tone.

Is Samson meant to compete with GTA-style blockbusters?

Not directly. Samson doesn’t attempt to match the scale, production values, or feature breadth of blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto. Instead, it deliberately occupies a smaller niche, emphasizing a specific fantasy—being a desperate criminal juggling daily quotas—over a full-blown crime-life simulation.

Why does Samson feel rough compared with other crime games?

Samson is a mid-budget title produced by a comparatively small studio. Without the vast resources of AAA teams, there are trade-offs in AI sophistication, animation, and refinement. The upside is more creative freedom; the downside is a higher likelihood of technical and design rough spots.

Should I play Samson if I’m usually into highly polished AAA games?

If you primarily care about slick production and expansive feature sets, Samson may feel limited. However, if you’re interested in seeing how an experienced designer experiments with a grittier, more focused crime story—and you’re tolerant of jank—it may be worth a look.