Steelrising is a Soulslike, but this time it’s French! Specifically, it’s Parisian, and it also has robots. You play as one such robot called Aegis who has been sent into Paris by Marie Antoinette to figure out why the King’s army of automatons have taken over the city. Yep, it’s going to be a weird one, but it’s the good kind of weird.
Steelrising’s setting certainly feels very distinctive, even though it does still bring environments that seem familiar for the genre. The dilapidated and burning buildings as you snake your way around the city may remind you a little of Bloodborne, but with a light French flavour perhaps. Despite this, the game is beautiful in a melancholy and morose kind of way. It’s not quite as grimdark as Dark Souls, and after the first few areas you’ll start seeing more palatial structures that all look rather nice.
Unsurprisingly the automatons you battle are the highlight, though admittedly some of them more than others. The larger ones in particular can be a bit hit or miss; some are creative and unique whilst others feel like rote recreations of a troll with a massive club. None are more impressive than Aegis herself though, who has clockwork moving around inside her body that you can see through a transparent window in her back. It’s an exquisite detail that really makes her seem more convincing somehow, despite being an 18th century French robot. She also has some rather stylish clothing to choose from, including a hat that’s so large I had to take it off to see more than just her chin during conversations!
Despite the prettiness of Steelrising, you should still switch right over to performance mode and play at 60fps. Make no mistake, Steelrising is pretty hard and you’ll need every edge you can get in a Soulslike – the first boss took me down quite a few times before I got through it. It might not be quite as taxing as other games in the genre, or maybe I’ve just gotten better at them whilst I wasn’t looking, but it’s still going to pummel you into the ground if you don’t carefully balance your defence and attack.
You have a few things to help you against the many, many automatons you’ll be facing. First, obviously you have weapons, which can be upgraded to keep up with you if you find one you fall in love with. I found I’d chosen a class with a melee weapon with a very short range, but was quickly able to replace it with a Falchion and Sabre, then with a fiery ball on a chain, then a halberd… you get the idea. Each comes with their own playstyles, but some are a touch unbalanced – the Wheel of Vengeance does good damage, but not even close to enough to account for how unbelievably slow it was.
You may also encounter some with special moves that are basically useless for similar reasons, including my beloved Falchion and Sabre, which has a blade dance that takes ages and doesn’t interrupt enemy attacks, making it a liability. Parrying is considered a special attack too, so many weapons lack the ability and will require liberal use of the dodge button instead. You’ll also find that some enemies can actually parry you!
Guns are also a part of Steelrising, though are primarily used to deliver status effects to enemies from a distance, as they don’t deal too much damage otherwise. Once a status meter on an enemy fills up it will trigger an effect, like ice damage freezing an enemy for a few seconds, allowing you to get a few hits in without response. There are melee weapons and even a few abilties that can deal status damage as well, though not at a distance, and careful use of them can give you a huge edge in a fight. Your gun will use up your supply of ammunition, and while it’s dropped pretty often by enemies, you can soon run out if relying on it too heavily
Boosting Aegis’ abilities are modules that can be fitted into four slots, providing bonuses to health, stamina, and other such things. These modules have multiple levels and higher level ones require its slot to be upgraded to the same level first using keys found in the world. All of your upgrading can be done at the game’s equivalent of a bonfire, the Vestel, and this includes weapons, stats, and Burette – the equivalent of the Dark Souls Estus Flask, allowing you to heal a set number of times until you return to the Vestel to replenish. As ever for the genre, all the enemies return when you use the Vestel, so you’d best make sure you really need it first.
If with all of these things you’re still struggling, or if you’d just rather play a more forgiving game, you can use Steelrising’s assist mode to make it into one. It will lock you out of a few difficulty related trophies, but you can change damage reduction, stamina regen, and even keep your Anima (the upgrade/level up currency) after death. If you just desperately want to see the story through you could even turn damage reduction up to 100% and marvel at how much better at the game you suddenly are now you’re not terrified of messing up at every swing of your weapon. Assist mode is entirely optional and yet seems like a relatively simple addition to make what would make the game more accessible to people who don’t have the time to temperament to get through it otherwise. I hope it becomes more common in the genre.
I have noticed a couple of bugs while playing Steelrising. Once or twice, the voice acting was completely missing for a line in a conversation for some reason – the voice acting is pretty good, but there’s fewer French accents than you’d expect in, you know, France. You can also sneak attack enemies to deal a particularly powerful blow if you can get behind them without them seeing, as you might expect from the genre, though very rarely when this sneak attack kills the enemy, the model stands back up and keeps playing its idle animation. Thankfully, these are very unobtrusive as far as bugs go and likely a relatively quick fix. Steelrising otherwise runs very well on PS5.
