The Ascent is coming soon to PC and Xbox, and it is the first game from Neon Giant as a studio. It has been busy at Neon Giant for the past three years, slowly but steadily expanding the studio, then the team, then the game itself up to a point where the founders and new team members were happy with the result. The Ascent is a next-gen game designed to leave its players in awe at how deep it is, especially considering that Neon Giant did not have a huge budget to make the new IP, and also the fact that the studio comprises a total of 12 people.
Such a little studio still managed to pour all its energy into making a beautiful game that feels great to play because of how creative it is, and how alive its world is. The setting in The Ascent is very important, as it is based on an arcology. This comprises a whole city, with tons of tiers and levels, offering an ascending feeling to players who dive deep into the story. There are several alien races, too, and each of them has its own voice acting and language, which further allow players to immerse themselves in the complex setting of The Ascent. All of this was a flex of the creative muscle, as Game Rant discussed with Neon Giant's Arcade Berg
Why Creativity Was So Important While Developing The Ascent
Berg spoke about how The Ascent needed a setting that felt both restricted and layered so that exploring the world wouldn't feel like one of those immersion-breaking clusters of invisible walls. The Ascent's cyberpunk-like arcology is a city made of tiers, and moving up or down between them feels like visiting a whole new place. Neon Giant's idea behind this was to make this world limited without it feeling like it, which is no small feat.
[...] that is basically a giant building that’s an entire city. With that story hook, we can choose how big the world is without it feeling weird that you reached the end of the world. We don’t like invisible walls or made-up excuses as to why you can’t leave. You can move inside the entire arcology because we decide how big it is.
The Ascent is a game where several alien races coexist, and they all have a specific purpose that makes them unique, while also letting humans be humans, with no superpowers or other classic sci-fi elements. The story here is that players will play the role of indents, which means slaves basically, and they will work and shoot their way up the social ladder as the campaign progresses. The players work for The Ascent Group, which is mysteriously falling apart for reasons that will be discovered by playing the game. Having aliens added to this mix makes the game more fun, and it opens up many doors for the team's creativity to go wild.
The Process Of Developing The Ascent Told By One Of Neon Giant's Devs
Neon Giant's journey wasn't one with no challenges, though. As the studio was founded, building the right team became a key requirement to make a game that would live up to high standards. This proved to be a slow process, however, and despite the team working right away on the game, its development was slowed mainly because of the fact that some important roles were still missing, but deliberately so in order to have a great game in the end. In fact, it was Neon Giant's intention to make The Ascent into a triple-A-like game, both in the graphics department and in terms of actual gameplay experience.
This means it’s not been full speed ahead from day one because there were so many puzzle pieces to lay down. For every team member we brought on, that person would bring a new skill set to the studio, which would allow us to say “Ok, we have hired an animator, which means we can have things that move.”
The Ascent is a handcrafted experience that received a lot of love from its developers, starting with the character creation system and how it allows players to choose from plenty of options, and including gear that feels unique every time. This is where The Ascent shines, and that's because it makes every drop feel significant in a way, also thanks to the description for each item that provides players with more information about the world they are adventuring in. Maybe achieving all this wasn't easy, but The Ascent is finally ready to be played, and people will get to each find a little something that they love.
The Ascent is coming to PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on July 29.