Okay, if it wasn't immediately obvious to you guys I didn't actually watch the Inside Xbox event when it aired. I had no idea it was on and I totally missed it save for some of the closing announcements, and so I had a hell of a time collecting all the games together for later review. That being said, my lateness cost me dearly when it came to looking up this particular title here called 'Chorus' but stylised as 'Chorvs'. Instead I found myself faced with a completely different game called 'Chorus: An Adventure musical', which looks to be this magical retelling of Greek legend wherein all the gods look like club-rats. But the thing which really struck me about that game, which was not the game I was looking for, is the use of 'An' in its title. Why is it 'An adventure musical? It's grammatically sound, sure, but it thuds against the tongue so badly. There is no flow in that title whatsoever and someone should have stopped them. But that tangent has absolutely nothing to do with the the 'Chorus' I'm talking about today, so I'll just interrupt myself right here.
Chorvs is a real, next-gen, space-combat shooter and I cannot believe I'm saying those words right now. If you thought that the Battle Royales were getting played out, or that FPS games had been practically done-to-death, than let me assure you that neither of those genres were beaten-to-dust quite as severely as the space shooter genre was back in the day. Although when I say 'back-in-the-day' know that I mean in the days of the Atari. Ya'll probably remember 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids' but believe when I say that they are the just the precipitation emanating from the air atop the tip of the iceberg. Every single imaginable combination of spacey-words has been stiched together and stuck onto a space shooter for the Atari, and most of them were absolutely terrible. Now, I know that was a very long time ago but that sort of legacy does leave a bad taste in the mouth, and as such the industry dropped space games hard when they figured out how to make literally anything else. The only time when first-person space games became popular again was when Chris Roberts literally bought the genre back from the dead by transforming it into a simulation-type game, where the focus is away from combat and more towards simulation economy and all that jazz.
In recent generations there hasn't really been a combat-focused space gem that has received anymore than the cursory amount of attention from the big companies. At the start of this gen I remember one Japanese game that was a space-hybrid with Mech-combat, but it was pretty ropey and I think I'm the only one who remembers it. Chorvs looks to be a return back to the days of pure space-combat fun, and whatsmore, it looks to be a concerted effort for the teams involved, with real development funds behind it! We have big-shots like Deep Silver getting involved at a development level with this game and Microsoft taking the time to host it in their 'gameplay' reveal event, that's some high places to be boasting friends from, and I hope that reflects well on how this title is treated by the gaming audience.
But I've spent enough time marvelling at this game's mere existence; perhaps it might behove me to talk about the title itself, and I would if there was much to say. Unfortunately this is one of those titles that people point to when they are referring to 'games which didn't really show any gameplay', and this isn't the sort of title that can brag off something like that. Don't get me wrong, there are snippets, but for the first space-combat game in a generation, heck in several, we could really have done with a more coherent break down of what we're looking at. That being said, for a trailer that I can only presume was more worried about showing off the strengths of the Series X hardware, this title does put on a pretty impressive show.
Things start brazen with a close up shot of the main character, Nara's, face. Oh, I know what you're doing there, Deep Silver, trying to use dramatic close-ups to hide how proud you are of your face textures! There's no need to hide, however, because they are darn impressive and applause worthy for the team. I mean, perhaps not to the same level as Hellblade 2 is boasting, but this still ain't nothing to shake a stick at. That visual commendation extends to some of the space scenes as well which look pretty at their tamer moments and eye-wideningly impressive at their most ambitious. That shot of the scarlet nebula exploding over that planet is the kind of thing I want as a screen saver! Fill your game with moments like that and you'll have a visual treat on your hands.
From what I can tell from the provided video, the game will put us in the shoes of some legendary hero called Nara with your typical tortured past. She's leading her people in a deadly conflict against a (presumably) huge galactic threat known as The Circle with the help of her sentient ship, Forsaken. (Well they sound like a match made in heaven, now don't they?) From what little gameplay we saw it's impossible to tell if this set-up means we'll be partaking in huge space battles (which has always been a dream of mine in a game like this) but there's certainly room for such with this story. The focus will be less on being 'one of the resistance' and more 'the fist of the resistance' as the player starts upgrading their unique vessel to the point where they can take on battleships man-to-man. So that might not be exactly what I look for in a space game, but it still sounds pretty darn badass.
Knowing Deep Silver's history, the scope of this game and the obvious production value going into it, I'm honestly wondering whether or not this game has the potential to be marketed as an epic, because all the ingredients for such seem to be there! You have the protagonist hellbent on her redemption ark, huge 'survival of the race'-style stakes, and the potential for absolutely stunning set-pieces. I truly think in the right hands this game could be something special. And even if it doesn't hit the big leagues, this game still promises to be one of the most immersive story-based space titles we've seen in years, and that's worth some attention in my book. Simply skimming through the trailer and the weirdly in-depth Youtube description is enough to get my imagination for this title racing, now all I need now is an extended gameplay reveal to prove this title has some bite behind that bark. (Fingers crossed for something next month!)
Personally I'm not the sort of fella who drops his money at every single space game that comes his way, but I'm a sucker for an epic experience no matter the genre behind it and Chorvs is giving me those vibes already. If this game turns out to be everything that it's promising, it could spell a very interesting trend for the next generation as tech reaches a point where grand ideas become commercially viable, and that's quite the milestone to reach. Who knows what kind of revolutionary new genres and game-design trends could launch from that bedrock? This could be the age of the new gaming renaissance! (Who knows, maybe even Chris Roberts will finally see this and decide it's time to actually finish 'Star Citizen'... Nah, that'll never happen.)
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