Syndication Begins: Satellite Reign Out August 28th
Early access ends for Syndicate successor
Rain-soaked, neon-drenched and corporate-haunted, Satellite Reign's [official site] urban setting is the kind of near-future city that feels like a convincing world of tomorrow. Through sleep-starved eyes, this morning's launch video looks a bit like the 'world of last Saturday night', to be honest. It's a gorgeous Syndicate-inspired team-based tactical shooter / ARPG hybrid and after a long stay in the augmentation chambers of Early Access, it's almost ready for release.
I've yet to walk these streets, never mind claim them on behalf of my megacorp overlords. Jim and Alec have both thrust their ocular attachments into Early Access builds, however. They had plenty of positivethings to say about 5 Lives' work, which has the flavour of Syndicate but doesn't treat the past as a burden to be carried or a rigid template.
Jim and Alec both reckon the game feels and looks like what we old folk of the internet remember of Syndicate - that is to say, an open game built around systems in an enormous, believable future-city. It's a tremendously exciting proposition and we'll know how well it all hangs together on August 28th, when it leaves Early Access.
Despite his positivity, Jim comes to us with a warning from the past:
"There are serious limitations that the tech faces with the amount of stuff the game is throwing into this huge city, including the all-important crowds on the street. Then there’s the overall flow and balance of the game. It’s a precarious piece of design that will demand serious balancing care to be the game it needs to be. I’m not saying it’s likely to go wrong… just that it looks and feels fantastic so early, that it must now NOT GO WRONG. Do you understand?"
We understand. We wait. We hope.