Cyberpunk fans shouldn’t miss out on One More Level’s first person action-runner – Ghostrunner! Day of the Devs by Double Fine and iam8bit collaborated with Summer Game Fest hosted by Geoff Keighley to bring their presentation online this year and guess what? Ghostrunner just so happened to be part of the July Developer Showcase. Radek Ratusznik, Game Director of the Polish developer team One More Level shed light on new lore details and other elements from the game during the event.
The voiced protagonist is a Ghostrunner – a heavily augmented combat specialist who has woken up many years after into a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk world. In your quest for answers, you infiltrate the shelter of humanity’s last remnants – a gigantic megastructure called the Dharma Tower. In this world of violence, poverty, and chaos, your goal is to reach the top of the tower to deal with the tyrannical ruler – Keymaster Mara. She controls the flow of resources like food, water, and people into the tower with an iron hand. The Dharma Tower is completely sealed off from the outside world and was once completely self-sufficient of housing a million tenants.
At the end of the demo launched earlier this year, you release a rogue AI prisoner call the Architect. The trailer picks up right after, where it shows you being swept into the Cybervoid – a visual representation of Dharma Tower’s VR internal network. This is a place where you hack, gain access, and interact with advanced computer systems. You learn it to use a new power called the Tempest – a force push similar to Star Wars that can be used to deflect projectiles back at enemies.
The game has a one-hit one death mechanic similar to Hotline Miami – you frequently die in the pursuit of that perfect run. Death is a part of the core gameplay – you get to learn about new enemies, new arenas, and character abilities. Armed with a cyber Katana, a laser grapple, and a Matrix-style bullet time you engage in a fast and precise dance of death. There are character progression and upgrades that you can get for yourself, but those haven’t been revealed yet.
You are introduced to new human characters from the rebel group Climbers called Zoe and Diego, the ones who claim to have found you and repaired you back to health. You encounter new enemy types – shielded Enforcers, enemies that can jump across chasms called Sluggers, and deadly bipedal robots called Wavers. You also come across air rails that you can use to move around fast aka sky-line from Bioshock Infinite, and drones that you can land on top of and steer to reach your destination, where they explode in the faces of other enemies.
Ghostrunner is a heady mix of games like Hotline Miami, Superhot, Titanfall, Mirror’s Edge, and Dishonored. Built on the Unreal Engine 4 with Nvidia RTX support, it has already acquired a loyal gamer fanbase after the demo launch. The game has no confirmed launch date as of yet but expect it in 2020 on PC (Steam), Playstation 4, Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch.
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