The Alternate Timeline French Revolution of the Souls-like Sub-genre
Set during an alternate version of King Louis XVI’s reign of France, Spiders’s Steelrising puts players in control of Aegis, an automaton, or Automat as the game calls them. Intended to be Marie Antoinette’s bodyguard, Aegis is sent on a mission to find Antoinette’s surviving children, and learn the fate of King Louis. While on this mission, Aegis encounters a lineup of historical figures and comes across a fair handful of shocking secrets.
A “Souls-like” game, Steelrising brings challenging combat, large bosses, respawning enemies, and shortcuts to help exploration on return visits to maps. Several of these things tend to leave gamers like myself nothing but frustrated. However, for gamers who would rather simply play the game for story, or who may have physical challenges to attempting the combat, Steelrising has several options to personalize your gaming experience. Perhaps the most helpful of these options is the damage sliders. With said sliders, players can even turn damage from enemies off entirely, making it possible to solely focus on the story, and the frankly lovely environments and models that Spiders have crafted. From the gorgeous architecture to the small moving parts in Aegis’s clockwork peeking through their back, the attention to detail is impressive, and the result is so enjoyable to look at and explore.
While controls have a bit of a learning curve, just as most “Souls-like” games do, the controls for Steelrising never caused me frustration on their own. There are no “perfect” dodge or block bonuses, making it merely a matter of learning the base timing for what counts as a block or a dodge, and what counts as being hit. Exploration also has a similarly “you make it or you don’t” kind of clarity, making it easier to tell what is and isn’t the right way to reach a location. Admittedly, some of revolution-torn Paris’s twisting alleyways and partially blocked streets did get me turned around a time or two, but never long enough to get significantly frustrated.
Overall, Steelrising is a wonderfully crafted and gorgeous game with combat only as challenging as the player desires it to be. It brings an interesting alternate history story to life, complete with a cast of historical figures, and places players at the center. The attention to detail in character, enemy, and level design brought forward by Spiders also showcases their artists’ skill sets, leaving players with some really impressive sights to experience.