For Metroidvania lovers, the long wait for the most anticipated upcoming title in the genre continues. Hollow Knight Silksong is still AWOL, and while that’s a mighty disappointment, a steady flow of new Metroidvanias continues to ease the pain. Steamdolls is the latest to arrive, and rather unexpectedly, it’s one that Metal Gear Solid fans will want to pay close attention to – not only does it pride itself on stealth, savage takedowns, and intense combat scenarios, but its cast reunites three iconic voices from the MGS series.
Fully titled Steamdolls – Order Of Chaos, you take the role of The Whisper, a bloodthirsty but witty anarchist that must explore and battle his way through a sprawling steampunk city that is being driven to madness by some unknown corruption. This platform-filled world, which has some truly breathtaking comic book-style backdrops that depict a gloomy industrial metropolis, can be navigated as covertly or overtly as you like. You can sneak through secret passages, assassinate enemies from the shadows with brutal finisher moves, or just go for the run and gun approach and trigger combat engagements as much as possible.
The Whisper has an upgradable skill tree that will let you become a jack of all trades or focus in on one approach to become a master of stealth or a formidable fighter. He also has a home within the city that he can retire to after a tough battle, which you can also customize if you like your Metroidvania games with a side order of interior design.
Exploration and puzzle solving will also be key elements, and they’ll require your expert hacking skills, which will also be used to unravel the “memories” of the city to find out what has happened.
In what is an unexpected but pleasant surprise for a Metroidvania built by a small team, there’s been no skimping when it comes to storytelling in Steamdolls. A mixture of hand-drawn and 3D cinematics will move the narrative along, but the three core characters in the game are also fully voiced by a trio of iconic actors.
The Whisper’s recognizable tone belongs to none other than David Hayter, the voice behind Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series. But if you loved Kojima’s stealth games, here’s even more good news – Gabriel is played by Otacon voice actor Christopher Randolph, while Stella is portrayed by Jennifer Hale, the voice of Naomi in MGS and other notable roles such as the female Commander Shepard in Mass Effect and Samus in the Metroid games. That’s one hell of a cast for a game that is nowhere near a triple-A price point.
While Steamdolls is now live and available to play, note that this is its early access launch. It’ll contain “about 6 chapters of the game, totaling an estimated 5-7 hours of content,” according to developer The Shady Gentleman.
Steamdolls is out now in Steam Early Access, and up until Tuesday, February 25 you can get it with 15% off, making it just $16.99 / £14.23. You can grab it for yourself, or try its free demo first, right here.
For more, check out some of the best platform games on PC right now. Or if you’d rather look ahead, our upcoming PC games list is the place to be.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or join our community Discord to stay in the know.
Source link
