Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword) and Namco Bandai have taken the wraps off of their latest venture, Enslaved, a tactical action adventure game set in a perilous post-apocalyptic America.

Set more than 150 years in the future, Enslaved envisions a world left in ruin after fierce wars tore it apart, leaving a drastically thinned out civilisation with reminders of these battles in the form of ruthless robots used during the wars, who now traverse the landscape.

In Enslaved, players will take up the mantle of main protagonist, Monkey, “a strong and brutish loner,” and joined by a partner by the name of Trip, “a technologically savvy but sheltered young woman from a peaceful community.”

Both Monkey and Trip have been captured by a mysterious slave ship. Trip, in her attempt to escape the slave ship, employs the strength of Monkey by hacking into a slave headband to enslave him, linking the two together – if one of them die, the other does too.

The characters of Monkey and Trip are described as “dissimilar,” but are forced to trust each other and forge an alliance as they journey across an American wasteland to escape the robots, using their differing skills in combat, tactical thinking and athletic abilities in order navigate their harsh surroundings and survive.

The style and setting of Enslaved has been influenced by talent from both the film and music industries, while Andy Serkis, who played the role of Gollum in Lord of the Rings, Kong in King Kong, and King Bohan in Ninja Theory’s previous game Heavenly Sword, will direct and portray the character of Monkey. He will also contribute to the character script development, casting and directing for Enslaved.

Additionally, Nitin Sawhney, a musician and composer who has scored more than 40 films and created eight studio albums, will score the music for Enslaved, while novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland (writer of The Beach novel and screenplay for 28 Days Later) is a co-writer for Enslaved, and is heavily involved with script writing and in-game dialogue for the project.

Enslaved is set to release next year on Xbox 360 and PS3.