Kane and Lynch Multiplayer Preview

Kane and Lynch Interview and Hands-On

Publisher: Eidos

I’ve previewed Kane and Lynch: Dead Men before so, entering the rather spiffy Haymarket Hotel in London, I had a rather good idea of what to expect from certain aspects of the game.

Billed as one of the year's hottest new IPs, Kane and Lynch is a third person shooter for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (available November 23rd) which tells the twisted story of the two titular characters – mercenaries and fugitives who exist in a shifting greyness between moralities.

Straight off the bat the game feels like an old friend, albeit an old bald friend with a barcode tattooed on the back of his skull like some store-bought emo. Yes, I’m talking about Hitman, which was developed by the same team that is working on Kane and Lynch under the watchful eye of Morten Heiberg, lead PC programmer for the game. I’ll be chatting to Morten in just a little bit (round about page three, if you want to skip ahead). First though, let’s have a little recap on the story for Kane and Lynch and how it sets up the adventure to come.


In the singleplayer campaign, players control Kane. Kane is a man with only one thing left to lose; the family he abandoned years ago after he decided to run away and become a gun for hire. His prodigious talents in that field were soon spotted by a group known as The Seven, an elite group of mercenaries who entice Kane into their fold and work to become a rich and powerful secret organisation.

Naturally, it soon goes tits-up and after a botched job Kane finds himself with a fortune in diamonds, seemingly the only survivor. Before he can get a handle on things however he’s captured and put on death row, where he shares a prison transport with a schizophrenic man called Lynch who is accused of murdering his wife.

Out of nowhere comes the promise of escape when other remaining members of The Seven swoop in and liberate Kane and Lynch. All is not as it seems though and Kane is soon left broken-nosed and with a threat in his ears; recover the diamonds and return them to The Seven or watch his family be executed. If Kane manages to pull it off quick enough The Seven pledge to only kill him and spare his daughter, the one thing he treasures most.


Just to make sure there’s no doublecross, Kane is forced to take the unstable Lynch along with him and Lynch is promised the chance to take a position in the newly-reformed Seven and the pair are forced to work together on their impending adventure. It’s a complex plot and one which, from what I’ve seen previously, has the duo performing all sorts of heists and assaults in order to get the job done, hiring thugs of their own in order to get the needed muscle and trying to outrun the police at every turn.

The game also boasts some interesting multiplayer features which I’ll be looking at too. Instead of teasing you with little details about that though, what do you say we just get on with it and have a look at the game, eh?