IRONBORNE

STEELRISING mixes Paris with Yharnam

- Ian Evenden

Recently, in this very publication, the call went out for the death of the Souls-like, and yes, maybe that particular seam is looking a bit mined out right now. Dreary Dark Souls has a spunky cousin, however, that was never released on PC (though rumours persist), by the name of Bloodborne. It’s fast, it’s aggressive, it features guns and transforming weapons, and it’s a major influence on Steelrising.

You step into the porcelain skin of Aegis, a gynoid automaton with a steady hand for on-fleek eye makeup and whose buckled court shoes have an outrageous high heel. She is bodyguard to Marie Antoinette, the Austrian-born queen of France and apocryphal milkmaid-fetishist with strong views on what the poor should consume. Allegedly. Her Majesty and a friend are trapped inside the palace of Saint Cloud outside Paris just as the rabble are revolting, and fear the great unwashed might not be the only thing attempting to feel the cool breeze of emancipation, as the king’s new robotic security forces have slaughtered all the previous guards and now patrol the palace grounds, letting nobody in or out.

Marie Antoinette, naturellement, wants to know what’s going on, but rather than sneaking out herself and playing Metal Gear Solid: Cake Eater in her gigantic dress, she dispatches Aegis to Paris to act as her agent there. Our robotic hero then chops and blasts her way through the mechanical hordes, collecting resources (Essence), upgrades, and new weapons along the way.

PHYRE BRIGADE