It’s 1779, and in this Steampunk alternate history, King Louis XVI stopped the French revolution. He may not have lost his head to the guillotine, but he’s lost his head in a totally different way and his mechanical army is butchering the people of Paris. Marie Antoinette has been hidden away outside the city for her own ‘protection’, having lost her children. She is under no illusions that she is really there as a guest rather than being kept prisoner, and is horrified by her husbands madness, so she tasks her highly advanced automaton bodyguard, Aegis, to see what is happening.
Visually, the game is beautiful. Aegis’ design is striking, and you can customize her look with different ‘skin’ tones, face, materials and wigs (only the look, grey is in this year is seems). I especially liked the Marble option as it reminded me of Alita’s ‘doll’ body in Alita: Battle Angel (#alitasarmy, give us a sequel Disney!!).
The gardens of the starting area, Saint Cloud, are light and airy, whereas the city is dark and gritty, but equally well done. Sadly it’s not an open world game, though some areas are semi-open so you can explore. And some areas remain locked until you have the item or fulfill set conditions to enter them, so you find yourself going back to previously visited areas to find new things. Luckily there is a fast travel option to help with that.
This is, of course, a Soulslike game, so there are enemies abound, and they have their own strengths and weaknesses. You need to learn the best way to take on each type of Automaton, with even the trash mobs being hard hitting. And the bosses… Yeah. You start the game as one of four different classes; Bodyguard, Soldier, Dancer and Alchemist, and pick up a multitude of weapons on your travels, which, along with attributes you can chose the upgrade, allow you to develop your own fighting style to take them on.
Now, ordinarily i wouldn’t take on a Soulslike game simply because of how challenging they are, which doesn’t combine well messed up hand-eye coordination and inopportune muscle twitches, but Steelrising offers something many Soulslike games don’t; Assist Mode. This allows you to adjust game setting to make things more accessable. Rather than have generic difficulty levels, assist mode allows you to alter game play to suit your needs.
Along with the option to have subtitles of different sizes, and the option to rebind most commands, means Steelrising is far more accessible than similar games before it. Its nice to see a game company take accessibility seriously for this type of game rather than just shrug and say we’ll, these games just aren’t for you. Disabled gamers such as myself still like a challenge after all, even if that challenge isn’t as grueling as everyone elses. And lets face it, sometimes even able bodied gamers just want to have an easier experience, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Now as you might have guessed, I haven’t played that many Soulslike games, and I have seen critcism that Steelrising doesn’t really offer anything new in the genre. But personally I found the game challenging but enjoyable, as well as visually pleasing. I’d say give it a go.