Action is backtion, baby. Tides of Annihilation was already my standout from the State of Play, but I felt wary. It looked like a cool action game, but it could easily have been Yet Another Soulslike. Worse, it gave a mild ‘not quite there’ yet vibe of a Forspoken. Thankfully, we’ve now seen 11 minutes of gameplay, and I refer you back to my first sentence: action is backtion.
Though there is some Souls influence in the enemy designs, what we see from Tides makes it look far more like a true action game. It’s Bayonetta with a little bit of the vastly underrated Astral Chain sprinkled in there. Combat is fast and frenetic, not slow and methodical, with slick dodges, powerful strikes, and highly cinematic clashes the order of the day. It’s exactly the sort of game I want, and gaming seems to be embracing them again.
Character Action Is Returning To Gaming’s Top Table
Final Fantasy has leaned ever-further into the action scene, none more so than Final Fantasy 16. Were it not for the fact Tides of Annihilation’s protagonist is the lithe woman Gwendolyn and not the big beefy Clive, the scenes in Tides’ showcase could have been mistaken for Final Fantasy 16. Lost Soul Aside and Onimusha also brought action backtion in the State of Play, while Ninja Gaiden 4, Aikode, and Phantom Blade 0 – which swears it’s not a Soulslike, it’s just kinda like Dark Souls – are all just over the horizon too.
We’ve also just had Stellar Blade (though that was still more Soulslike than I would have liked, and expect that will change in the hotly anticipated sequel). The fact that all of the characters in the trailer (the humans, anyway) are women, and the fact Gwendolyn is mostly shown in flowing dresses, plus the apocalyptic anime-coded photorealism will naturally have people drawing comparisons to Stellar Blade. But the outfits are so feminine and swishy (and it’s less likely to partner with Nier and Nikke) that it seems more like if Infinity Nikki plunged far deeper into combat than if Stellar Blade stripped away its Soulsness.
Tides Of Annihilation’s Enemy Designs Already Rule
Maybe it’s no surprise that Tides of Annihilation is a Chinese game. While Western games are falling deeper into blurring the lines between action and RPG, Chinese games are committed to spectacle. Lost Soul Aside and Phantom Blade Zero, both already mentioned here, are also Chinese-developed, while Where Winds Meet, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, and Project: The Perceiver are similarly spectacular efforts. Even Black Myth: Wukong, while more of a true Soulslike, has that cinematic energy. These are exciting times for Chinese games development.
Tides Of Annihilation Walks The Walk, Can It Talk The Talk?
I’m still not entirely on board. These were elongated gameplay clips with just some contextual dialogue in between, which in and of itself is a show of confidence. Games are made to be played, and after so many trailers at The Game Awards (while impressive) were entirely cinematic, Tides is not attempting to con anyway. However, those moments of contextual dialogue left a lot to be desired.
Jennifer English is a fantastic Shadowheart, but shorn of that standoffish bite, layered dialogue, and general complexity, I’m unconvinced by her Gwendolyn here. It’s unclear even what her personality is, let alone the sorts of deeper motivations you wouldn’t always get in a trailer. Exchanges feel grating and clunky, designed entirely for exposition and to set up hackneyed lines. It doesn’t feel real, and thus I have a hard time imagining I’ll care about the stakes beyond how fun the game is moment to moment.
This is probably the most obvious place to compare it to Stellar Blade – Eve’s stylish adventure was let down by a convoluted story that telegraphed its extremely tropey twist, and she had an incredibly flat personality despite being highly 3D in more… aesthetic areas. Tides will need to bring something extra to the table beyond combat if it wants to live long in the memory.
Tides of Annihilation won my attention at State of Play, and immediately following that up with an uncharacteristically large gameplay reveal earns it a lot of Brownie points. It doesn’t even have a release window, yet it’s confident enough (and finished enough) to go deep on gameplay systems. That is to its credit, and will help it stand out from the crowd – at least for now. I’ve seen a lot to be excited about, and a little bit that concerns me. But all in all, Tides of Annihilation might have made the biggest splash at State of Play.
- Developer(s)
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Eclipse Glow Games
- Publisher(s)
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Eclipse Glow Games