Bluehole, the developer of PUBG, has created a brand new game! Is it going to be as awesome and star-striking as their mobile shooter? Or is it just hot air?
Ascent: Infinite Realm (or A:IR) is an ambitious new title. It’s an open-world MMO set in a dystopian steampunk world, where massive airships rule the sky, and massive robots fight dragons in hectic combat. It looks a lot like Anthem, but in a drastically different setting.
All that’s been shown are a few trailers and teasers, but lots of hype is building for the Korean studio’s next release. The frantic gameplay is very reminiscent of classic shoot ‘em up games, where an unholy amount of bullets are used to kill just one boss. It looks like this game definitely has a unique place in the market. An MMO mixed with a shoot ‘em up style hasn’t topped the most popular genre charts, but it will undoubtedly appeal to the masses.
Fortunately, it looks like this isn’t all speculation, because the trailers show a surprising amount of actual gameplay instead of cinematics. We probably won’t see a prolonged gameplay for a while, but this gives us a pretty good idea of the final product.
Judging by the trailer, the game appears to be set in a fantastical, steampunk-oriented world where monsters fight humans in large-scale battles. The realistic graphic style matches the setting really well, although, I hope they don’t get too carried away, because you don’t want the lore and style to distract from gameplay.
Speaking of gameplay, there appears to be a lot of game modes and missions throughout, which you can play against your friends or other players. From precariously sitting on a rock hovering over lava, to being a tiny person jumping towards floating cubes with question marks on them? Whoa!
Yeah, the game looks strange, but not in a bad way. Although the vibe is different, it feels a lot like Skyrim. The developers seem to know who the game is meant for, and try to cater to that audience. It’s nice to see Bluehole going in a different direction from PUBG, and separating from the hyper-realistic genre as they did with Tera Online.
Ascent: Infinite Realm appears to be a really ambitious and exciting project, and I’m all for it. We’ll see lots of more gameplay being revealed in the near future, but for now, my hopes are high.
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