For my money, the most exciting trailer at this year's Future Games Show was the brief, one minute world premiere of Sunday Gold, an indie with elements of point-and-click adventures and JRPGs, as well as a striking retro-future look and impressionist character art that reminds me of the work of Aleksander Rostov, lead artist on Disco Elysium.
That's not the only lead Sunday Gold is taking from PC Gamer's 2019 GOTY: Sunday Gold looks like it embraces the political, pitting a motley crew made up of an activist, an ex-con, and a "disgruntled ex-employee" against the oppressive regime of a near-future London.
Between its full-length trailer and the briefest of second looks in a broader Team 17 sizzle reel, Sunday Gold shows off point-and-click exploration in gorgeous, pre-rendered environments and a distinctly JRPG-style turn-based combat system.
- The creators of Disco Elysium unofficially consulted on fascinating upcoming RPG Rue Valley during a brutalist architectural tour of Belgrade: 'It was completely unexpected'
- D&D-skewering, Disco Elysium-inspired RPG Esoteric Ebb had me trying my best to be a cleric while my Intelligence stat kept telling me to become a wizard-king
Sunday Gold looks to meld some of my favorite gaming flavors into something totally new: Disco Elysium's punk noir and mature politics, Deathloop's late '60s "conversation pit future," and a clean, classic style of turn-based combat that trades swords and spells for brawling and firearms a la Yakuza 7.
With the indie craze to replicate Stardew Valley's magic in the past few years, I'm pretty jazzed to see what may be the world's first Disco Elysium-like. Maybe I'm projecting too much of my hunger for more moody, noir RPGs like Disco E onto this briefest of looks at Sunday Gold, but I think it speaks to what Bkom Studios and Team 17 have cooking if its first look can get me so excited. Sunday Gold is set to release this year, and you can wishlist it on Steam and follow the project on Twitter.
