Nuclear Blaze

Nuclear Blaze is the solo project of Sébastien Bénard, lead programmer on Dead Cells, and the controls carry the same instinctive snap. You play a firefighter air-dropped into a burning region to investigate a blaze and look for survivors, and the gameplay verb is the fire hose itself — directional spray, water management, careful pressure control through doorways and ventilation systems.

The job goes sideways quickly. The blaze is centered on a military facility designated Site 16, with redacted internal references to A-█████ that the game progressively unredacts as you penetrate deeper. Backdrafts ignite when you open the wrong door without cooling first; sprinklers help when you can find them; cats need rescuing because the game is honest about its priorities.

This is explicitly not a roguelite — the campaign is a structured action-adventure with hand-crafted progression. A dedicated Kid Mode aimed at very young players (around 3+) ships with simplified controls, infinite water, auto-aim, no death state, and the same firefighters, trucks, and helicopters that drew Bénard's own son to the game's prototype during a Ludum Dare jam.