Replaced

Weeping for the memory of a life gone by

One of the rare positives we can note about the modern games industry is the prevalence of titles both large and small, catering to development teams of all types, giving them their chance to shine and be seen should they strike the right eye. In particular, a couple of the E3 conferences of recent years have gone out of their way to show off purely those smaller games that would otherwise be lost within the hoards, because in them lie some of the most ingenious displays of talent you'll find across the industry as a whole. Rarely are they sullied by that same sterile trend-hopping or a need to implement the latest blood-from-a-stone monetisation system, instead you'll just be treated to a vision that the developers wanted to make as good as they could muster. Seeing these games are important because every now and then you'll spy something special that sweeps you away with that little niche which would never make it in the big markets, and if you're super lucky you might even happen upon something that'll blow your very mind as being more than you'd think any small studio could pull off on their own.

It takes a heck of a lot for an smaller indie-adjacent game to make a strong impression on the basis of a trailer alone. They can't afford to ship out to some professional trailer-maker company who can summon up an entire CGI explosion fest on their behalf, they have to make do with putting together a carefully curated reel of everything a potential customers wants to see, without giving away the whole game. Whatsmore, given that we're talking about indie games here, having the chance to make and distribute a trailer on any significant platform is a huge opportunity that few will want to squander. Thus comes the undue stress and pressure of this essentially being the one chance to put your best foot forward, and it all mixes together to make indie game marketing a wholly unenviable job. Those who can excel at that one opportunity are surely worth their salt.  

Such definers would then, I suppose, dictate that the team behind Replaced certainly have their ducks in a row, because their trailer simply blew me away when I saw it during this E3. To the point where I instantly wrote it down and said "I have to see more of this game" before I would even give my brain the chance to forget its splendour. So why did this game shine as bright as it did for me? Because it spoke to me with that one language that I cannot help but respond to not matter how often, nor how badly, it hurts me; this game spoke pure Cyberpunk to me. (That being the genre of Cyberpunk, obviously; not the franchise.) Yep, you throw neon glittered streets at me and I'll still get all weak-legged and star struck, it's a weakness to be sure. But I'm being a tad factitious, because it's not just the fact that this is a Cyberpunk Retro-futuristic title, it's also the fact that the thing is beautiful.

I mean just heart-stoppingly gorgeous on a pure visual design level, what the team have managed to conjure up for this game is nothing short of magical. On the frame of a 2.5 D world, already a difficult medium to work with as fundamentally different design concepts are married, Sad Cat Studios have coveted an evocative cartoon flat style for the core sprites ontop of a 3D sprawling environment. They aren't the only one's to do that for this E3 either, in fact there was just a spattering of 2.5 D games that copied this same formula ever since the RPG world fell in love with it in the wake of Octopath Traveller. However Replaced, in my opinion, wears it best; imbuing this sense of life and action into the very audience's perspective. The camera tilts, and jostles, and bobs with the action of the scene; we're pulled right down into the dirt for the intimate moments and pulls a little higher to see the scope of the scenes in the wilder moments. It all betrays a mastery of cinematography and visual storytelling intent that you rarely see in even the best of such genre games. 

But that's just the basis for a trailer that seemed to impress in just about every single way it shoots for, to the degree where I'm wondering about the validity of that which we've seen so far. (It can't look that good in real life, right?) The lighting has presence in the 3D environment which allows for lovely shots of light bouncing off of  wet stone or Neon refracting on suitable surfaces. Particles such as snow and wind are on the forefront layer, allowing the viewer to really breathe in the effect of the scene without having to worry about fall vectors and intersecting with the world objects. And then there's the animations, oh the animations! I'm not sure for the moment how much of this is actually representative of the game and how much is just trailer goodness, but the game looks ungodly smooth and fluid in it's combat, weaving one action into the next whilst the camera actively adjusts to throw about the scene; I'm just in love with how this game looks.

Narratively the game seems a lot more cliché than it's visual style would suggest, or at least early synopsis seem to give off that impression. The game takes place in alternate history 1980's America  where society is rebuilding in the aftermath of a nuclear strike. (I'm guessing there's a little bit of 'cold war turned hot' trope going on here so that a some healthy 'red scare' can be floated around.) The world is ruled by megacorps, gangs of outlaws roam the streets, and you're just a simple AI stuck in a human's body trying to live your life, it's all a very straightforward sci-fi Cyberpunk affair. But I suppose in that lies the accessible beauty, doesn't it? It's a futuristic world that everyone recognises and can approach so that they instead focus on the 'cinematic platforming' and 'free flow action combat'.

Even in my persisting ire for everything they've done and said of late, I'll still credit CDPR for bringing this genre of Sci-fi closer into the mainstream so that projects like these can be all over the indie scene now. Atop of Replaced we have The Ascent, coming later this month, GhostRunner from last year, Katana Zero from 2019, and heck, maybe we might even get another Shadowrun if we're lucky. (Though I'm not holding my breath on that one.) It makes for such a rich background for a game to be set in that it would be a crime if more games didn't take tacit advantage of it. In fact, there's even some out there that seem to think Starfield is going to be a Cyberpunk title in it's own right, even if I can't really see where they're getting that impression from. (Although I suppose we can't really credit CDPR for that game, now can we?)

Replaced is one of those titles that makes me really excited for the sorts of coming evolutions upon what we accept a genre game to be, if a simple 2D platforming action game can look this good on the side, then who's to say how offer genres can come together with the various new software development tools that are becoming available. And even more than that, it makes me blush to even look upon it's face because it's just that darn pretty all on it's ownsome. Independents all over the world dream about putting together something with the oomph to sweep people of their feet, and I think this Sad Cat Studio people have really managed to pull it off by presentations alone, all that's left to be seen is how the thing actually plays in action. You best know I'm going to be keeping a close eye on this one,.