A new video game, Virtue and a Sledgehammer, sees players return to a robot-populated version of their home town armed with a sledgehammer and their dead mother's corpse, smashing through buildings to uncover fragments of a family story. Developed by Spanish studio Deconstructeam alongside collaborator Selkie Harbour, the game reworks an earlier, more conventional transhumanism concept into a more personal metaphor about not belonging, using its small-town setting to explore themes of identity and estrangement.

The protagonist, Pratelle, is written as a queer woman who doesn't fit into her culturally conservative home town, though testers have often mistaken her for a man, something the developers say reinforces the game's themes around identity and misrecognition. Players uncover her backstory, including the implication that her own sister turned the townspeople into robots, by smashing glass statues containing memory fragments. Game director Jordi de Paco describes it as more of a narrative "walking simulator" than a combat-focused title, marking a departure from Deconstructeam's previous story-driven games The Red Strings Club and Many Nights a Whisper. Virtue and a Sledgehammer is in development for PC, with release planned later in 2026.