Image: Titolovesyou & DreadXP

Despite doing regular rounds on the YouTube PS2 nostalgia circuit, let's be real: Rockstar's grimy stealth murder sim Manhunt wasn't much to write home about. Great tetanus-risk aesthetics, sure, but as a game? A bit wonky. PIGFACE, from solo indie developer titolovesyou, is another beast entirely. Similar style (albeit in first-person), similar concept, but a fantastic–if utterly depraved–time, even in early access. While the final version won't be ready until next year, there's a good chunk more of it to play this week, with the release of the Construction update, the penultimate update before V1.0.

For those who haven't played Pigface (and you really should), you play as Exit, a terrible woman who is extremely good at hurting people. She's fallen foul of some sketchy criminal syndicate, had a remote explosive implanted in her skull, and is now being sent on borderline-suicidal missions into rival gangs' turf, usually with orders to wipe out all opposition. A little immersive sim, a little no-holds-barred grindhouse FPS, depending on how you want to play.

Each mission tends to be a replayable sandbox affair. You're given a goal and several sub-objectives to complete, a whole complex full of babbling freaks who want to kill you, and have almost complete freedom to get the job done, using whatever gear you could afford to buy beforehand, or using whatever you can get your hands on in the field. Combat is mean and messy, with no crosshairs and only weapons with functional sights able to be aimed down.

Opponents will crumple and stumble into ragdolls well before dying, and they can be punted or slammed off high ledges and into traps in the environment. Not quite Dark Messiah (nothing too complex about the melee here, and no magic), but it's still always fun to boot enemies to their doom. Were it not for Exit being a remarkably tough lady and having a stash of morphine syringes for 'healing', it'd be Hotline Miami-esque. Given some of the masks you can find that twist the gameplay, I guess it kinda is.

This week's Construction update adds three new missions. The titular Construction, which is one of the wider, most sniper-heavy environments so far. The smaller side-mission Scrapyard (featuring a lot of messy close combat in trap-laden arenas) and a remixed alternate version of the Urban Plaza mission. Now in daylight hours, foggier, and with routes changed and enemy placement significantly nastier.

The full patch notes are here, but the key takeaways are that on top of the three new missions, there's a new basic enemy type that uses riot shields (well defended against melee, vulnerable to shots to exposed fleshy bits), molotov cocktails to throw at them, and a few new main weapons. Foremost among them is the MDR assault rifle, which is a fully upgradeable piece of endgame kit. A major step up from an unsighted MAC-10 knockoff.

There are also a pair of new unlockable masks, offering more Hotline Miami-inspired gameplay mutators. The Ghost mask is for stealthy players and lowers both visibility and movement noise, while the Thugg mask gives you a powerful jump-kick move and bonus health on melee kills. The latter speaks to me, as someone who spent as much of the FEAR series as possible trying to kick my way to success.

The Construction update is live now, and Pigface is available on Steam for £10.59/$14. No discounts now, but the Winter sale is just around the corner, and the next big update looks set to add the story's finale.