SteelRising Proves a Soulslike's Setting Can Make or Break It
It goes without saying that the soulslike genre is slightly overcrowded at the moment. Spiders is the latest developer to try its hand at replicating this magic formula with action-RPG SteelRising, which draws heavy inspiration from FromSoftware's catalog of games. The very nature of the soulslike genre is to copy the formula that works so well, and this means it can inevitably be very difficult for one game to differentiate itself from the others, with fundamentals such as combat and skill trees all feeling very similar between titles. SteelRising makes no attempt to be different in this regard. It does, however, put players in the middle of a war-torn 17th Century Paris, and this is what really makes it stand out.
SteelRising's alternate version of history sees a crazed King Louis XVI commanding an army of automatons in order to rule the city with an iron fist. These automatons roam the streets of Paris, keeping terrified citizens locked in their houses, afraid to leave. Playing as Aegis, a sentient automaton who is tasked with ending the king's rule by defeating these machines, players get to explore Paris and traverse some of the contrasting environments it offers.
4 Things We Love About Steelrising (& 2 We Don't)
On the face of it, SteelRising seems like a fairly run-of-the-mill soulslike. Light and heavy attacks, a stamina bar, various weapons to collect and upgrade, a refillable health container, and checkpoints where the player will respawn upon death, regenerating all enemies in the area, and more are all standard fare. Anyone with even a passing interest in the Dark Souls series or any of its clones will know exactly what to expect here. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing, it does mean that the game has to
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