While last year’s glowing reception of Grand Theft Auto IV highlighted the gaming community’s insatiable desire for violent open-world games, Ride to Hell should appeal more to sandbox anarchists. Produced by Deep Silver (formerly Rockstar Vienna), RTH is set in the swingin’ Sixties during the West Coast counter-culture revolution, and it’s more Easy Rider to GTA IV’s Goodfellas vibe.

You’ll hit the road as Ray Kaminski, a Vietnam P.O.W. returning from the war to find a very different world waiting for him, where almost every bar, restaurant, and community surrounding the main hub city of Blackfield is overrun with crime, drugs, hippies, and bikers. You soon fall in with the Devil’s Hand, a local biker gang that plays host to a rogue’s gallery of lively named characters. Naturally, you’re free to take on missions at your leisure (right now, more than 100 are planned), trick out your bike in the Garage, or just cruise around looking for some tail.

Speaking of your ride, your chopper is what your pooch was to you in Fable II: your faithful sidekick. It’s always there, and it can never be destroyed or taken away. In the Garage, you can customize everything from the frame to the turning signals, and there are benefits to upgrading. Obvious performance perks aside, the cooler your bike is, the easier it’ll be to score some action with the ladies while earning precious respect from the townsfolk — which, in turn, unlocks more missions, just like in Saints Row 2.

As you work your way up through the ranks of your gang, you’ll get into a ton of fights, and quickly learn that RTH is less about gunplay (in fact, guns aren’t even introduced until the second act, and they’re in short supply at that) than it is about melee-flavored brawling. Which is good news. Remember, you’re a biker!

That means you’ll be cracking skulls and taking names with bats, tire irons, knives, and hatchets, as well as going the Every Which Way But Loose route with your bare knuckles. You’ll have light and heavy attacks, combos, and environmental finishing moves — all guaranteed to leave your opponent in need of an emergency visit to the nearest dentist. Deep Silver also plans to include Road Rash-styled on-bike combat. Consider our engines revved.