French game developer Spiders has a growing fanbase following its recent run of game releases, culminating with 2019's Greedfall. However, to follow up on Greedfall's release, Spiders decided to continue its streak of creating new IP. Steelrising will be Spiders' new game, a Dark Souls-inspired action RPG set in 1789 amid an alternate timeline French Revolution. To help acquaint fans with Steelrising's premise, Spiders has released a new trailer delving into the game's story and setting.
While Steelrising is a story of the French Revolution, it's also something very different. In this timeline, the Revolution was quelled by Louis XVI's army of mechanical soldiers. The result hasn't stymied the will of the Revolution, however, and now the king known as the Clockwork Tyrant faces a new enemy. Aegis is an automaton built to combat the king, a perfect mechanical assassin that can cut through the Clockwork Tyrant's army and finish the Revolution as intended.
Aegis was built by one Vaucanson, the very engineer that the Clockwork King employed to build his clockwork army. The nature of this betrayal will be up to players to discover. In addition, the nature of Aegis herself will be explored, who is no simple machine. While some may see her as another machine to be used, Aegis will have to come to her own conclusions regarding the Clockwork King's crimes and whether to support the Revolution of her own volition.
For Spiders to decide to make Steelrising in between Greedfall, its most successful game yet, and Greedfall 2, which was announced on Wednesday, shows that the studio has confidence in what it's making. The French Revolution is a rarely explored historical event in video games, but for Spiders, it's an important part of the history of the studio's home country. Exploring that history in a uniquely Spiders way is clearly something the studio is passionate about.
With that said, there's sure to be some skepticism surrounding the release of Steelrising. Creating a Souls-like action RPG is a challenging task, and expectations for the genre have never been higher. That's all the more true when employing themes surrounding the class struggles of the French Revolution, never mind the questions raised by a sentient robotic soldier made to fight that war.
Steelrising's release date is less than a quarter of a year away, so expect Spiders and publisher Nacon to share more about the game in the relatively near future. Today a new trailer exploring Steelrising's story was shared, so expect to see more information on combat, progression, and other systems in the months to come.
Steelrising releases September 8 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.