Developers behind the upcoming Metal Eden game have revealed parkour plays such a key role in the first-person shooter (FPS) because “traversal is always boring in other games”.
Metal Eden is an 'adrenaline rush sci-fi FPS' according to studio Reikon Games, which is made up of industry veterans from CD Projekt Red (which develops The Witcher series) and Techland.
Players control ASKA, an advanced Hyper Unit android built around a digitised human psyche, being plunged into cybernetic warfare to uncover the mysteries of a lost paradise across eight missions.
It features breakneck-speed gameplay as missions are navigated using parkour mechanics and this carries into arena sections where players have to take out waves of enemies and complete objectives to progress.
The game was first revealed at a PlayStation State of Play event on February 12 with previews of the game’s first two missions going live a day after that.
Games with parkour mechanics and quality first-person shooters are usually two completely separate entities and fusing these together successfully within one package has proven incredibly challenging for developers.
But they revealed why they were so keen to have parkour in Metal Eden.
Adrian Kornecki, executive producer of Metal Eden, said: “For us, traversal is always boring in other games because you can only walk and that’s why we started to think how we can improve that.
“There are other games in Poland [where Metal Eden is being developed] that incorporate parkour into the main loop and we wanted to do something similar.
“In the next mission [after the opening two] there is a big surprise too. ASKA is an android so she’s a great option to do this with.”
Some games have brilliantly unique ideas but struggle to keep the concept from growing stale as the hours go on.
Along with parkour, Metal Eden’s spin on the FPS genre is ‘core-ripping’ (where players can rip an enemy core to defeat them and then throw it at another foe to take it out or weaken them, or consume it to regenerate health) and developers have reassured they’ve got a few tricks up their sleeve to make sure the game never feels repetitive.
“We’ve got some crazy stuff that’s added in later missions,” said Metal Eden brand director Jakub Izydorczyk.
“The start of the game gets players to grips with the mechanics but then things keep being added so the game keeps being a challenge.
“It’s a curve we always wanted to have as the player can do impossible stuff already playing as an android but there also needs to be things that are difficult so players feel rewarded for beating it.”
There have been a number of challenging aspects throughout the development of Metal Eden, the developers said.
“It’s been a hard game to make, gameplay has been hard to nail,” said Izydorczyk.
“It’s not been an easy road but we’re happy with the game and what we’ve created. The pacing second-to-second has been different to anything we’ve done before.
“DOOM 2016 was a big reference for us, Titanfall as well, and we really enjoyed Ghost in the Shell so we thought let’s do something with those vibes.
“We thought let’s do a shooter that we would like to play and we also want people to really have fun playing this.”
Kornecki added: “There are also timeframes and ambitions we’ve had to deal with - keeping both in mind while delivering what we have has been the most challenging part.
“We spent a lot of time building the team and finding appropriate actors for voiceovers, finding great animators for the cutscenes - pushing for perfection has been the most difficult part of the production.”
Metal Eden releases May 6 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
