New open world action-RPG Silver Palace is about playing detective and curb-stomping demons
I don't remember Baker Street having this many harpies
I have a narcissistic recurring daydream that consists of teleporting historical celebrities into the present so that I can show them bits of 21st century technology and absolutely blow their tiny, primordial minds.
"This deceptively pocket-sized contraption is a trillion times more powerful than your silly adding machines," I would tell Charles Babbage, brandishing my smashed Google Pixel phone. "Did the Wright Flyer have wifi?" I would ask Wilbur and Orville, pushing their faces against the window of a 747. "Put this in your pipe and smoke it," I would tell Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, menacing him with the trailer for Silver Palace, a new open world action-RPG from Chinese developers Silver Studio and publishers Elementa, which is notionally set in a Victorian metropolis.
Silver Palace's Victorian metropolis has red phoneboxes, elegantly appointed trams, top hats, clocktowers, detectives and ballgowns. I imagine Sir Arthur Conan Doyle could just about keep pace with all that, though he might object to the plunging necklines and the overall loudness of the colour scheme.
But then I would show him the angel-winged anime girls, the power-drifting panther steeds, the neck-snapping finishers, the real-time character-swapping, the demons pretending to people who must be exposed using magic profiling functionality. "Why don't your Sherlock Holmes stories have glide mechanics?" I would sternly enquire of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as he curled up sobbing into his hands.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's one psychic defence would be to point out that his Sherlock Holmes stories don't contain any gacha mechanics, this being a curse peculiar to our so-called modern age. Fine, Doyle, I'll let you have that one. It's not clear what Silver Palace's gacha elements involve, but here's 11 minutes of gameplay overview to give you a sense of the whole.
Some press release blurb to finish: Silver Palace is the tale of Silvernia, a city powered by the "revolutionary element" of Silverium. You are a Detective who must delve into a shady world of corporate monopolies, underground syndicates, and hidden monsters. It runs on Unreal Engine 5, and will be free-to-play. There's no release date as yet.
I can take or leave the overclocked character designs but I do like the looks of that urban backdrop. Hopefully the open world element is pronounced enough to allow for a Crackdown-style collectathon. Also please may I have some kind of Watson, Silver Studio? Is that catgirl maid the equivalent of Watson in Silver Palace, and if so, can you please make her as creepy as Creepy Watson in Frogwares' games?