"A man chooses. A slave obeys."
-Andrew Ryan
When Irrational Games disbanded in 18 February 2014, they created a new company called Ghost Story Games. I thought that's the only 'reborn' company of Irrational Games, but I just found out that there is another video game company of former Irrational Games' developers, called Uppercut Games. This is their newest upcoming game, City of Brass.
Armed with scimitar and versatile whip, lash, slash, trick and trap
your way through the City of Brass, a first-person rogue-lite of treasure, snares and ghoulish foes.
City of Brass is the upcoming game from a studio founded by former Irrational Games' artists, programmers and designers who created the great BioShock and BioShock 2. As you can see in its cinematic trailer above, City of Brass set in Arabian Nights-inspired city that looked quite majestic, yet full of danger and glowing-blue ghoulish army.
In terms of gameplay mechanics, Uppercut Games take the inspiration from BioShock games, but the game will give the player a different tactical gameplay with that whip and scimitar, and the surroundings. We would take the role of a thief who the identity haven't revealed yet, to slash our way through the City of Brass in a more than swing your blade to kill kind of gameplay. Sure we will use the scimitar to kill the enemies, but I don't think stabing and slashing is enough to make a game to be mechanically great.
That's why the game provide various ways to beat the enemies on our way such as stun them with the whip and make them blind with a brick to their face, blow them up with explosive vases, set them on fire and then push them into a trap. That's a nice way to end someone.
The whip in our hand could be used to manipulate the enemies before we kill them, such as disarm and trip the enemies. It's also work as a grappling tool to escape or reach a higher ground and grab inaccessible objects. I think this whip is gonna be another iconic weapon in gaming. This game will test the player's agility, giving challenge like "Leap across pits, slide under blades, dodge spears, and sidestep poison gas traps – all the while manipulating hazards to your advantage against diverse spirit foes." Check out the gameplay trailer below.
As we make our way battling the glowing ghouls and evading traps through the sandy setting, finding treasures is also the main point of this game. Not only collecting as many treasures as we can, looting chests will also give us upgrades for the weapons and armors.
The Genies that we will encounter are the trader in the game, they are willing to barter gear, upgrades, secrets, or protections in return for loot. However, only most of them are friendly enough to willing to chit chat and barter shiny stuff or grant a wish.
Uppercut Games said if we die in the game, the second playthrough and the next won't be the same as the previous, because the levels are proceedurally generated and we will die often. So we can't memorize the obstacles' pattern in order to succeed to get trought it, instead we will need to master the moves and mechanics to get further. Sounds challenging indeed.
From what I can see so far, I think this game is where we need to be creative to make our way and will be more than just charging to the enemy and stab them. Because the whip and scimitar play are meant to be used along with the agility skills like sprinting, sliding, and vaulting for a stylish playstyle with much combos.
I had an incredible experience of fighting Splicers and Handyman in the underwater city and the floating city from these (former) Irrational Games team, and this game is coming from the creator of the iconic underwater city of Rapture. So if City of Brass going to offer another great experience of fighting ghoulish foes from a city in the sand this time, I'm in for that.
City of Brass will be released on Windows PC on Steam this fall. PlayStation 4 systems and Xbox One will have to wait until 2018. You can click the image above to go to its official page.
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