The Ascent is a new cyberpunk action RPG from indie developers Neon Giant. This was first revealed back in May on Xbox’s “20/20” livestream. The reveal features a cool dystopian world but then cuts to what seems to be an isometric twin-stick shooter.
Apparently that’s selling it short, as shown in this new dev walkthrough video. The Ascent is at its core an RPG. You can customise characters that can be decked with personalised gear, augmentation and look to fit your style. And these items can be earned from missions, fallen enemies or bought from the (in-game) market.
The shooting isn’t just around the 360 degrees that your character can rotate either, you can choose to aim high or low too. Aiming high, as highlighted in the video, can stagger enemies.
Verticality plays a big part in The Ascent, not only from the aiming mechanic, but also through the layout of the world with various levels of platforms you can traverse to.
The world is also reactive. Crowds of NPCs cowering away and debris lingering after explosions can be seen in the dev walkthrough. It’s a next-gen game, and as such, Neon Giant are targeting 4K 60fps when played on the Xbox Series consoles.
It also has up to four-player co-op, which is a feature seen in more RPGs as of late like Wasteland 3.
Take a look at the dev walkthrough video here:
The Ascent will be coming in 2021 and publisher Curve Digital has announced that it will be launching on Xbox Game Pass on launch, available on PC, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.
“Xbox Game Pass is an amazing proposition for us as a small indie developer with a team of only 11 people, because it allows more players around the world to experience our game,” says Tor Frick, Art Director and co-founder of Neon Giant.
Curve Digital previously launched a new game straight to Xbox Game Pass with Hotshot Racing.