One of the many trailers that premiered during Gamescom 2022, the minute-long sneak peek juxtaposes some very authentic replications of famous places such as the Louvre and the Bastille with some incredibly fantastical dueling robots. The dissonance between these two elements may seem jarring at first, but there’s a certain genius in grounding such an outlandish premise in reality, and it arguably grants Steelrising a leg up in a gaming niche that’s rapidly becoming overpopulated.

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Though franchises such as BioShock and Fallout are famed for their alternate histories, soulslike games tend to lean into their fantasy elements and establish worlds and lore far removed from reality. FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice may have dabbled in the art of melding real history with high fantasy, but, aside from some very vague connections, the Japanese province of Ashina may as well have been Lordan or Lothric. Coming up against the genuine historical figure King Louis XVI in Steelrising may come as a genuine shock after fighting through hordes of totally unreal mechanical menaces, and battling bosses in the Luxembourg Garden may well come across as completely surreal.

That said, Steelrising is far from the only soulslike to take on a grimdark gothic style. FromSoft’s 2015 epic Bloodborne may as well have taken place in Victorian-era London, and the recently-released Thymesia seems to have drawn from very similar influences. Neowiz’s upcoming soulslike Lies of P was almost certainly inspired by gothic antiquity and further serves to prove that the soulslike formula needn’t rely on the heavy fantasy trappings of its namesake.

Fortunately, interested parties won’t have to wait very long for Steelrising. First teased in 2020, the game is now primed for a September 8 release. Also, as touted in the new trailer, those who pre-order the title will earn access to the beta which releases on August 25. Souls veterans and genre newcomers alike will want to keep an eye out for this one; it may just become one of 2022’s sleeper hits.

Steelrising will be available on September 8 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.

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