Steelrising review: a creative Soulslike attempt that struggles to execute

digitaltrends.com:

When it comes to developer Spiders, the studio has yet to land a hit that matches its ambitions. Technomancer was largely viewed as a unique story tied saddled with poor gameplay and technical performance. Greedfall was a slight step up, but for the most part, had the same issues. While many are waiting to see if Greedfall 2 can iron out those technical issues and live up to the BioWare RPG mold it looks to improve on, Steelrising has bubbled its way up in the background. Its trajectory is the same story for Spiders, though.

This odd experiment feels almost intentionally left in the dark. It’s a Soulslike, but with perhaps the most interesting premises any of these imitators have had yet. It is set in 1789 in Paris during an alternate history where King Louis the XVI gained control over an army of automatons, quelling the revolution that would eventually lead to his execution in our world. We play as the lone intelligent automaton seeking to stop his rampage.

I see potential in that premise, especially from a team whose prior games had little but the story to call great. The unfortunate reality, however, is that for every good idea Steelrising has on paper, nearly none of them are realized in the final product. Without that, uninspired gameplay and technical performance issues make this another uneven release for a studio that’s always sitting on the verge of success.

Everything that interested me about Steelrising‘s plot and setting came from pre-release material describing the game rather than the game itself. The main character, Aegis, is an Automat (the shorthand used for automaton in this universe) who is charged with protecting Queen Marie Antoinette. However, Aegis is different from other Automats in that, for