Steelrising Preview - A Clockpunk Soulsborne With A Dazzling French Revolution Setting

thegamer.com:

Soulsbornes have exerted a strong influence on players and developers alike, casting a certain magic. Before Elden Ring took FromSoftware into the mainstream stratosphere, the studio took the genre it created from cult classic to a central pillar for many titles that borrowed from it. But now comes a very European entry to take up the mantle and to offer up its own unique spin.

Steelrising has a European charm to it, one that’s specifically tied to its French Revolution setting. We see an atmospheric, dark Paris, but it also glitters with the gold and glamour of that age’s kings and queens, a trait that also contributed to their doom. Steelrising establishes this royal patronage in its opening, while you play an automaton charged with the task of finding her creator imprisoned in Bastille and who was a favourite of the Clockwork King.

Related: I’m Suddenly Interested In Steelrising

Soon we encounter other automatons: machine guards and beasties that have a dazzling variety to them. These clockpunk creations contribute to combat that’s like the mechanical gears inside their shells: considered, hard, and precise. Players must decipher the combat mechanism of every foe. Steelrising will offer up a challenge to any hardened Soulsborne fan, but those who struggle – like me – will be relieved that the game’s developer Spiders has cooked up a rather well-developed ‘Assist Mode’.

Spiders CEO and founder Jehanne Rousseau tells me Greedfall, the studio’s previous game, cost less than €5m to make and that the more-than two million copies it sold amounts to a “huge success” for them. “It’s very far from triple-A,” she says, and hinted that Steelrising’s budget was significantly more than Greedfall but still much less than €10m.