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Steelrising Is Looking Like a Surprisingly Good Bloodborne Tribute (IGN.com)

https://www.ign.com/articles/steelrising-preview-hands-on

More at the link. September 8th, 2022 release for Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 5, PC.

steelrising_h6YOcW5.jpg


IGN said:
Developer Spiders is best known as something of a BioWare tribute studio. Its most successful game, GreedFall, is the latest in a modest line of RPGs that draw heavily upon the likes of Mass Effect and Dragon Age. But Spiders’ next game, Steelrising, is nothing like a BioWare game at all. Instead, it’s an ode to FromSoftware. Specifically, it is Bloodborne set in the French Revolution, with Yarnham’s beasts swapped out for Parisian clockwork robots. As a pitch, it sounds a little derivative (at least mechanically). But despite seemingly minimal innovations, playing Steelrising reveals something that has genuine promise.

At a recent hands-on event I was able to play around three hours of Steelrising, which covered the opening locations and the first major boss. Playing as Aegis, a clockwork automaton ballerina-turned-bodyguard, I explored a small variety of twisty rural village and Parisian city locations that knotted themselves together with shortcut routes. As I tore apart robotic enemies with blades and bullets I collected Anima Essence, a resource that I could use to upgrade my stats and improve my weapons, provided I didn’t lose it upon death. Upgrades were conducted at ‘Vestal’ checkpoints, which also refilled my health restoring oil burette with a fresh supply. If it’s not already clear, Steelrising plays exactly like a FromSoftware game.

IGN said:
It’s easy to be cynical about this. Where, exactly, is Spiders’ original work here? But look at FromSoftware’s own library, and it can often be difficult to see the difference between Demon’s Souls and Elden Ring. The Soulslike formula seems fated to remain as ‘pure’ as possible, and so it’s in the details that we find each new game’s differences. With Steelrising, those differences appear to vary in significance as well as quality.

Like Bloodborne, Steelrising is an action-RPG that promotes aggression. With only a few weapons that offer the ability to block or counter, this is a combat system in which you dodge and jump your way through incoming blows in an enjoyably mobile manner. While it's governed by the genre staple stamina system, when your endurance is exhausted you can rapidly cool your robot’s internal mechanisms with an active reload-like button press, which instantly tops your stamina up and throws you back in the fight. This is particularly helpful in mastering Steelrising’s staggering mechanic; give an enemy no reprieve and a diamond-shaped gauge will build to breaking point, allowing you to land a high-damage critical attack. These are minor tweaks rather than big changes to Bloodborne’s core, so consider this an alternate recipe to an already great meal, rather than a different dish entirely.

IGN said:
And yet, despite these flaws, Steelrising remained really engaging, at least in those opening hours. That satisfying combat with its oddly mechanical rhythm is accompanied by a beautiful, intricate ‘clockpunk’ art style, which sees the grandeur of Assassin’s Creed Unity blended with the ticking metal monsters of Doctor Who’s 2006 episode The Girl in the Fireplace. Aegis herself is a mechanical marvel, her weapons elegantly sliding out from body panels like a renaissance-era Robocop. Treasure chests click and whirr as their mechanisms pop into place, and the Vestal checkpoints clatter as their cages rise out of the ground to reveal the chairs that upgrade Aegis’ abilities. Despite its clearly modest budget delivering something that's far from a technical powerhouse, Steelrising powers through to deliver surprising good looks.

It was in my final task of the demo, a fight against the gargantuan Bishop of the Cité, where I could see all of Steelrising’s best ideas come together. The boss itself is an amusingly tiny cleric piloting a massive rolling pulpit; a Catholic Weeble, basically. It’s armed with a colossal Bible on a chain, swung in heavy arcs that are easy to dodge but lethal if you get complacent. The ball it rolls around on is impervious to damage, meaning you have to leap up to strike at the little bishop himself. That demands burning plenty of stamina, and so using the rapid cool mechanic to regain stamina is vital to chaining together the leaps, attacks, and dodges required to bring down this mechanical menace. It’s the combination of meshed combat systems and absurd alt-history fiction that makes Steelrising endearing to me despite its struggles. I doubt it’ll give Elden Ring a run for even its small change, but I’m nonetheless fascinated to see what other wild enemies and weapons remain to be found in the burning streets of Paris when Steelrising releases this September.
 

Pejo

Member
No dig against the developer here, you can tell they're passionate about this game, and I hope it finds an audience, but.....

You can tell this is another "souls-like" that copies the superficial stuff from the Souls games without really "getting" what makes them great to begin with. The atmosphere is off, the combat looks..ehh..

I'd argue those are two of the most important parts of a proper Souls game. This is going to end up like Mortal Shell, Surge, Code Vein, etc etc etc that gets the basic formula correct but doesn't nail any of the details.
 

Chukhopops

Member
Greedfall developer
Im gonna keep my expectations low here. Bloodborne was amazing for its architecture style (and I’m not even a huge fan of it) while Greedfall couldn’t even get proportions right for houses, everything felt like it was twice too big.
 

jaysius

Banned
This is a $50 USD game, I think I'll still wait for GamePass though, it does look really janky.

Greedfall was incredibly fun and better than the last 2 Dragon Age games but there's a huge difference in DA mimicry and Soulslike mimicry.
 
This is a $50 USD game, I think I'll still wait for GamePass though, it does look really janky.

Greedfall was incredibly fun and better than the last 2 Dragon Age games but there's a huge difference in DA mimicry and Soulslike mimicry.
I regret not trying Greedfall before it left GP ... yesterday lol.
 

FunkMiller

Member
I’ve yet to find a soulslike that comes anywhere near close to the real thing. Would love to see something that changes my mind.
 

Thief1987

Member
Combat is the weakest part of the Spiders' games, and now they are trying to step in to the genre centered around combat. Eh, not optimistic and footages doesn't look convincing either.
 
some gameplay


Anyone else plan to get this? Out Sep 8

It's moments like these where the video games industry still confuses me.

Why didn't this game receive any type of media showcase during both big Gamescom presentations? MS could have easily made this a part of their show since Keighley took Lies of P.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Spiders?

They couldn’t even get combat right in a game that used guns, swords, and magic.

I wish them well, but unless the team has changed, I already know it’s going to be substandard.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
some gameplay


Anyone else plan to get this? Out Sep 8

Combat in Greedfall was a big turn off, but this looks considerably better. What's odd is the art direction for inner city areas (which was actually a high point of Greedfall) seems to have taken a hit here. Will definitely give it a go when it comes down in price or drops into one of the services.

I’ve yet to find a soulslike that comes anywhere near close to the real thing. Would love to see something that changes my mind.
You'd think somebody had nailed it at this point, but there really does seem to be a knack to it that is hard to replicate. Nioh is probably the closest and certainly nails the combat element, it just falls down on level design, art direction, atmosphere and game design. Spanks FromSoft in terms of performance though - which is something I wish FromSoft would look into!
 
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GymWolf

Member
Combat in greedfall was so atrocius that i had to bail out, same for tecknomancer, spiders can't do combat to save their lives like many people said.

This one look a bit better tho.
 

Fbh

Member
Combat in greedfall was so atrocius that i had to bail out, same for tecknomancer, spiders can't do combat to save their lives like many people said.

This one look a bit better tho.

I really don't get why they decided to make a Souls-like.
They've always had competent writing and interesting characters and worlds but terrible combat. So they decide to make a game that primarily focuses on combat?
Britney Spears What GIF


If the pc benchmark anything to go by, I am expecting this game performance to be worse than Bloodborne



Not surprising, a lot of the gameplay videos they showed actually looked choppy.
When you can't even get your pre recorded marketing material to look smooth it's usually not a good sign.
 
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Mister Wolf

Member
Honestly I'd rather play Steel Rising and Lies Of P then another Fromsoft title if From uses the same style of storytelling they've used for most of their recent games. I'm over it.
 

ChoosableOne

ChoosableAll
Getting 6 points from IGN is an insult. If you like souslike games, try Nioh ASAP. Unfortunately, AA game companies are not capable of doing this type of games. I hope "Lies of P" breaks this cycle.
 

H4ze

Member
God I hate that we have to compare everything always with Bloodborne, sure, great game, but some here are downright obsessed with it...

Maybe not just here if I think about it..
 

Fuz

Banned
God I hate that we have to compare everything always with Bloodborne, sure, great game, but some here are downright obsessed with it...

Maybe not just here if I think about it..
Tell that to devs that keep getting inspired by it.
 

Hot5pur

Member
I don't now if I trust these random benchmarks that have been shared. User on Steam has a 3060 Ti and has been playing at 1440 p with raytracing with DLSS quality hitting 52-75 FPS (if evenly distributed averaging over 60 FPS). Not amazing optimization but I imagine a 3080 at 4k+raytracing with DLSS quality on Ultra might swing around 60 FPS, maybe with a few small things turned down.
Will see more benchmarks before pulling the trigger.

As for reviews, seems it's like low to mid 7s kinda game. It's good overall but likely lacks the epic scale and feel of the games it's trying to emulate. The price-point doesn't help, should have probably been $40 to make it more palatable. Luckily there is cdkys/instant-gaming for that (prices around $30 for even the edition w/ expansion).
Once I see some 4k benchmarks I might grab it to play. The Fextralife review gave it around 8.4 and they gave Elden Ring 9.5, probably a bit on the generous side for Steelrising, but it was encouraging nonetheless. The IGN reviewer had a stick up their butt, but then again, they give every iteration of COD which hasn't innovated much in years a high score, and they mostly criticized Steelrising for not innovating. Eh.
 
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Macattk15

Member
Combat literally looks like you're covered in mud or fighting underwater.

How is that considered a good tribute?

Trash.
 
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