Mechs and alien spiders run amok in the grim retro warfare of Beta Decay
Hitting early access this year
Open world sci-fi RPG Beta Decay is being delightfully greedy. The game's retro PS1-inspired art style hides some furious ambitions. It will be a "dystopian RPG where you can build spaceships, join factions, and fight for territory in a newly discovered star system," according to the Steam blurb. The game's previous trailer showed some swish (if somewhat prototypey) cover shooter combat. But the game now plans to launch into early access this year, developers Rotoscope Studios have announced. And this time they've brought the big guns, literally. Mech some time for the trailer below.
Ah. That is some primo PlayStation 1 polygoning. There's no tight release date for this early access shooter, just a loose "2025". The open world survivalist combat is already looking more polished, a smog-smudged peek at the factional warfare the developers are promising, which will see corpo jerks and syndicate scum clash "in an endless fight for territorial control of the Alpha Centauri star system."
What this looks like in practice is a lot of diving and ducking and blasting off limbs. Miniguns, sniper rifles, thermal goggles, VTOL aircrafts, weird dudes commanding legions of insectoid horrors. What's not to like? Just look at that dithering. I could run my finger across the screen and it would feel like a tea strainer. Ah, beautiful.
The game also plans to include a lot of other features, going beyond the firefights we see here. There are promises of survival mechanics that require you to eat, drink, and sleep. As well as the possibility of buying and selling goods (and even stocks) in a "player-driven" economy. Not to mention the spaceship tinkering.
"Become an engineer repairing starships, a mech pilot commanding war machines, to a syndicate leader, executing raids deep within a labyrinthic neon city," say Rotoscope. "Trade products through physical shops on the streets to digital securities on the Centauri Exchange. Build spacecraft with complex sub-systems such as power grids, server networks, and life support systems to keep your crew alive in deep space..."
These are big promises for what looks like a small studio. Even one of these many features would constitute an entire game's worth of work. I'm also conscious of what happened last time I expelled litres of drool over an apocalyptic mech-stomped warzone. The Forever Winter was much jankier than I'd hoped (although to be fair it is getting reliably updated as its own early access continues). But never mind that. I am the mech appreciator. I live in a rusty state of eternal hope. I'll keep you informed of Beta Decay's progress.