I have to admit, I was stoked to see Starfield and Lies of P getting the lion’s share of attention in September 2023 because they’re both new IPs in gaming. I’ll get to both of them in a second because, beyond them, there was a rich vein of diverse games that made their debuts. So, let’s just dive straight in.
Eternights
I suspected I would like Eternights. I did not expect it to be my favorite of the new gaming IPs of September 2023. The reason it was is less because of anything in the gameplay itself and more because there’s a potent sense of intentionality to the entire experience. It speaks plainly and openly to the social context in which it was created, as I’ve already written about at length. That sense of reflection is something that I simply adore.
Beyond that, Eternights is a simple yet charming story of survival in an apocalypse. We’ve all seen stories about the power of friendship, and the game literalizes that by mapping the protagonist’s power level to the strength of the bonds you build with the other characters. On one hand, it prods you to engage with the story and get to know the characters better. And even if they’re not the most interesting, or well-written, it’s enough to make you really care. On the other hand, it makes for an ever-evolving combat system that allows for a surprising amount of tailoring to your play style, though it never reaches — or even strives for — anything like the complexity of a Devil May Cry.
With that in mind, I was excited to hear that developer Studio Sai had gotten a massive injection of seed funding recently to develop its second game: a massive piece of good news amidst the endless wash of layoffs. And a direct follow-up to Eternights would be fascinating. Again, it could draw from our current context to question what comes after the terror and trauma of the apocalypse and how those left behind cope with the turmoil. Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s going to be the case.
Witchfire
Witchfire is the perfect single-player game for multiplayer gamers. And I am cut up about that. Truth be told, I can’t say I didn’t expect it. I’ve been following Witchfire since it was first announced six long years ago, and my enthusiasm waned over time with the revelations that it would be a roguelite, that it would apparently feel a lot like a soulslike, that it would prioritize systemic progression over narrative progression. And now that it’s finally here, well, the gamefeel is phenomenal, but as for the rest…
I have to admit that I am fully aware that my preference for strongly authored, narrative-centered shooters is extremely out of date. I refuse to shut up about August’s Immortals of Aveum, even if everyone else is happy to never mention it again. But I digress. Witchfire isn’t that. Not by a long shot. The best comparison is that it’s a single-player extraction shooter: you enter a location, grab loot, kill a bunch of uglies, and hightail it back to the extraction point. It’s simple, fun, and — to me, at least — too repetitive.
As much as I love the tactical layer of checking the maps for the locations of loot, enemy hordes, and roaming demons to plan your excursions, it’s just not enough of a hook for me. There’s definitely room to grow through the remainder of the Early Access period, though, and I am hopeful because the narrative framing is really compelling. For now, though, it’s best if you just want to shoot things because I can confidently say I haven’t played a shooter that feels this tight in years. Traversal is fast and fluid, and the guns have a delicious heft to them, which is bolstered by the Preyer’s magical powers, so it’s definitely worth at least a look-in to see if it resonates with you.
I can’t help you with the mushrooms, though.
El Paso, Elsewhere
If you want the more polished shooter, go with Witchfire. If you want the more compelling, go with El Paso, Elsewhere. I was absolutely entranced when I played through the demo earlier this year, cleaning it up twice — and one thing you need to know about me is that I very rarely bother with replays; there’s just too much to fit into my limited free time. That makes me all the more glad that the demo wasn’t just a greatest hits compilation; it was an EP.
I use that metaphor because El Paso, Elsewhere is more reminiscent of music than many other games. It has a pulsing energy designed to keep you moving, keep you entranced. Each of the game’s multitudinous levels is compact, a bite-sized morsel of mixed and remixed settings that can be blasted through in only a few minutes as you head in and pull back out again. It’s fast, and the level layouts are diverse enough that they never feel tiring as you rip through them to solve some basic puzzles or save random NPCs.
Goodness knows the gunplay is a little wobbly and the Max Payne-esque slow-mo acrobatics aren’t as useful as you might hope, but the beat more than makes up for those relatively minor issues. Coursing alongside the levels is the developing story of James Savage, a neo-noir standee on a mission to save the world from the nefarious plot of his ex-girlfriend, Draculae. The rhythmic narration is compelling from the start, and it only gets more so as you delve ever deeper into the abyss beneath the fabulously mutable El Paso hotel. For all that, the great strength of El Paso, Everywhere is that it is confident in what it wants to be, and any extension feels like it would only take away from the clarity of the experience.
Lies of P
Lies of P is the kind of game that I question noting in these roundups because, in the absolute strictest terms, it’s not a new IP. Instead, it takes the bones of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, throws them into a creative meat grinder, and extrudes them in a sausage that looks suspiciously like a soulslike. It’s not an adaptation, though, not when you spend most of your time dallying through a post-apocalyptic city setting and taking out every mechanical beastie that crosses your path.
It’s odd that, outside of Dark Souls itself, this genre has seen precious few franchises take hold. The Surge and Nioh each only lasted two iterations, and Lords of the Fallen doesn’t really count considering the sequel has only the barest spiritual ties to the original. Maybe, though, that’s just because it’s still relatively young. In any case, I can absolutely see Lies of P breaking the trend and growing into a long-term franchise.
In that, it stands apart from similar, smaller-scale soulslikes such as Thymesia or Steelrising. That’s partly because Round8 Studio absolutely nailed it on their first attempt. I don’t need to relitigate the considerable amount of praise that’s already been leveled at Lies of P, except to say that it absolutely deserves it for feeling different within the confines of very familiar gameplay. The other part comes from the narrative framing. There’s a rich vein of possibility within the idea of twisted fairytales and children’s stories. Lies of P itself hints at one possible future direction, but it’s not hard to imagine public domain tales like Alice in Wonderland, The Little Mermaid, or Peter Pan getting similarly dark, inventive treatments.
Notes from the Backlog
As ever, there’s just not enough time to play everything that comes out, so what other new gaming IPs from September 2023 am I keen to dive into? The first on that list is Starfield. Wait… Starfield on the backlog? Bad games commentator! I played long enough to make a character, kill some pirates, be given a ship by some total rando and then do some space dogfighting. Sure, it was all exciting stuff, but it didn’t immediately grab me in the way other Bethesda games have. Plus, enough people have had their say that I didn’t feel the need to put time into it when I wasn’t excited. Maybe I’ll revisit it in six months or so (although I said that about Mass Effect 2 nine years ago now, so…)
While that’s a daunting prospect, Cocoon is much less so, as I’ve seen it being bandied about as just a handful of hours long. That definitely makes it the kind of game I can easily get behind. To be honest, I thought it was going to be a curio, but it has attracted a surprisingly strong amount of positive buzz on the back of brilliantly designed puzzles. Maybe that isn’t all that surprising considering it comes from the mind of the lead gameplay designer of Playdead’s Limbo and Inside. At the very least, it’ll be as good as Somerville, which I liked well enough.
I’m a little less certain about Abriss because I’m not really a fan of games where you make your own fun. Minecraft? Survival games? Endless modes? Forget ’em. What does make me curious is the utter chaos on display, and, to be fair, Abriss does have built-in challenges. Laying that aside, let’s be real. Who doesn’t want to build utterly wild contraptions to blast environments into billions of voxel-y pieces? It’s the digital version of a smash room!
