The Brotherhood to unleash Animal Use Protocol in 2026

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Creators of the Stasis series unveil first-person, narrative-focused survival horror game starring intelligent animals

The Brotherhood certainly doesn't believe in clinging to tradition. After a series of highly acclaimed isometric point-and-click adventures, the South African creators of the Stasis series and Beautiful Desolation are crafting an entirely new sort of game next, in the form of the survival horror Animal Use Protocol. 

During a deadly pandemic, extensive and inhumane animal testing was begun in search of a cure at Anchorage Station. But something went terribly wrong with these experiments, and it's up to a "hyper-intelligent chimpanzee" named Penn and his "scrappy rat companion" Trip to enter the station and lead the remaining lab animals to safety. But the facility is now a "nightmarish, dystopian" place filled with carnage and devastation, and staying alive will depend on whatever you can scavenge and craft of what is left. You'll be "relentlessly stalked by a monstrous chimera of experiments gone wrong," and you have only your wits, a gravity manipulation tool, and each other to protect you. 

While the theme of deranged scientific experiments isn't new to this developer, just about everything else is. Gone are the bird's-eye isometric perspective, point-and-click control scheme and traditional complex puzzles of the game's predecessors, replaced here by a first-animal, free-roaming 3D perspective, keyboard controls and a greater focus on survival. Even without a human protagonist, however, the experience still promises to be "narrative-focused" as you search for clues to "uncover the truth behind what happened here." But you'll need to be stealthy and strategic in maximizing the limited resources at your disposal, crafting anything you can to make useful new items along the way. How the gravity gun and Trip are utilized has yet to be revealed, but the first trailer offers a glimpse of the kind of horrific exploratory gameplay we can expect. 

A game like this doesn't happen fast, unfortunately, so it'll be sometime in "mid-to-late 2026" before Animal Use Protocol is released on Steam and GOG for PC, followed later by consoles. In the meantime, you can follow its progress through the game's official website. 

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