Steelrising, the French Revolution soulslike in development by Greedfall outfit Spiders, has summoned a new trailer showing off five minutes of robot-stomping gameplay.
Taking place in an alternate timeline where King Louis XVI thwarts the revolution with an army of robot automatons (now that's a premise), Steelrising sees you battle your way through the smouldering ruins of Paris in the ceramic body of Aegis, an android created by one of King Louis' engineers.
Having already unveiled a hot minute of gameplay last year, this new trailer provides a slightly broader overview of Steelrising's systems and locations. The video starts out in a workshop on the outskirts of Paris, showing off various in-game weapons such as the "Gribeauval Halberd", a hybrid melee and ranged weapon reminiscent of Bloodborne's rifle-spear, alongside a pair of fetching armoured fans, the ideal accessory for a murderous robot facsimile of a French aristocrat.
The action then switches to central Paris, where Aegis demonstrates her platforming abilities, including a nimble dash manoeuvre and a Sekiro-style grappling hook, before slicing up a boss named 'The Bishop of the Cité'. We also get a glimpse of the various outfits Aegis will be able to wear, letting you fully embrace the fashion of late eighteenth-century France.
It's a surprisingly raw video compared to last year's much flashier footage, showing placeholder UI and clearly missing some elements like music for the boss battle. This isn't necessarily a bad thing – an honest video is preferable to a heavily choreographed trailer that isn't representative of the game's current development status. At the same time, however, taking on From Software demands an extremely high-level of quality, and that extra layer of polish is something that Spiders has historically struggled to deliver.
That said, the combat looks much improved over that of Greedfall, while Spiders' vision for a dilapidated, robot-strewn palace is undeniably enticing. The studio always delivers interesting games, and Steelrising looks no different in that regard. We'll find out whether its combat can cut the mustard when it launches on September 8.
