The third-person action adventure excitement of ReCore was first teased at E3 2015 with a cinematic video that showed promise without giving too much away about the potential of the all important gameplay element. With a matter of months to go until it’s release, the game finally got its gameplay trailer debut during E3 2016 and it’s looking like it may well be a contender for the winter escape plan with huge robots at your beck and call and a cool desert landscape to keep your thumbs in business with.
Developed by Comcept and Armature Studios, the game is one of Microsoft’s big exclusives for the year, and with a female protagonist and advanced robotics, it’s hard not to see it as its main competition to PlayStation’s Horizon Zero Dawn. The big difference between the two is that ReCore looks more like a barren lands, post-apocalyptic future, while HZD is all tribal, with a pre-historic robotics twist, so it’ll be interesting to see which one comes out stronger.
Release date
The ReCore UK release date will be on the 16th September 2016, coinciding with its arrival for the rest of Europe (thankfully, the computer games market isn’t bowing down to any referendum separatism). It comes just a few days behind the US release on the 13th September 2016, but crucially a whopping six months before the release of Horizon Zero Dawn, so it has got a fairy healthy head start on it, as well as the all important Christmas present period in its favour.
As a Microsoft exclusive, it will only be available on the Xbox ONE and PC through Microsoft Windows, but with Microsoft’s new dual release principle, it’s hard to say if this will work out as a positive or a negative. On the one hand it means the game has more sales options with PC release thrown into the mix, but at the same time it doesn’t act as a console exclusive to potentially boost Xbox ONE sales.
Price
It’s going to retail for £29.99 in the UK ($39.99 in the US), so it’s on the cheaper end of the gaming spectrum. It’ll also be one of the first pioneers of Xbox Play Anywhere, which means if you buy the game digitally for either the Xbox ONE or Microsoft Windows, you’ll be able to play it on both and cross save between platforms.
Campaign story
The story for the campaign centres around the young protagonist, Joule Adams, who wakes up to discover that she’s one of the last remaining humans on a planet that has become overrun by robotic beasts that appear to have a “destroy all life forms” policy built into their mainframe. However, with the help of a few friendly robots, she’s able to start to get to the bottom of what’s happened and fight back a little against the onslaught.
Part of the Far Eden colony, she’s been in cryo-sleep for hundreds of years and when she finally gets her sleepy head up and about, she finds out that their plans had gone pretty badly while she was catching some Zzz. Luckily, she finds at least one friendly face in her Corebot buddy Mack who becomes her first ally in her battle with the corrupted technology that dominates the planet.
Gameplay
ReCore is an out-and-out third-person single-player adventure game that combines problem solving with exploration and battle with big and relentless robotic fiends. Set within a barren landscape and with the mystery of what has happened on the planet, Joule takes to the sand dunes and industrial relics in a bid to save humankind from a terrible fate.
She’s got some pretty impressive skills hidden behind the deception if her sight frame though, so if anything it’s probably the deadly robots that should be quaking in their mechanical boots. In addition to her acrobatic jumping capabilities, back peddling and running speed, she’s also got a pretty cool set of jet packs strapped to her feet, so she can power forwards even faster when she needs a little extra boost, as well as using them for higher and longer jumps than normal.
Her arsenal is made up of her laser gun, which she uses to blast the bolts out of the machines that are out to get her, and a strange grappling hook device, which she uses to tare the cores out of them, stripping them of their power and digital architecture in one fell swoop. However, it’s the friendly Corebots that she meets along the way that appear to be the difference between success and failure in her mission.
The first of these is Mack, who she starts the game with, providing a little attack protection with his own scrapping skills against the enemy robots. She also discovers Seth along the way, which helps Joule get to hard to reach places thanks to its climbing skills, giving her a lift in the process as it couples to her grappling gun. It’s got a head mounted laser gun too, so it can provide a little cover fire and protection. However, the biggest hitting robot in her camp is Duncan, which looks like it’s been modelled on an oversized gorilla in metallic form. It can use its strength to open jammed doors for Joule and unleash a big beast ground punch, which ignites everything around it in a blast of flames.
Check out the gameplay trailer Bela to get a quick sample of ReCore in action for yourself. The title will boasts 12-hours of gameplay action when it’s release date comes around in September, which isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things.
Graphics
For the most part, the game looks strong graphically, with solid renderings for everything from the characters and enemies to the dynamic environment and industrial obstacle course that Joule needs to traverse. There’s only one area of the gameplay trailer vid from E3 2016 that we’re not convinced by and that’s the wide pad camera angle for Duncan, which just looks a bit too basic to impress.
First impressions
In general, we’re looking forward to ReCore, without having overly high expectations. It looks cool, has an interesting concept behind it and a lead character that we can’t wait to get to grips with. The environments are big and expansive and it looks like there’s going to be a lot to keep you busy as you set out on your quest, whether it’s the bad robots that attack you upon sight or the challenging terain you’ll need to tackle.
The Corebots on your side add a lot of variety and interest to the game, but ultimately it’ll come down to the quality of the story delivery and gameplay action in the end. Both of these look good from what little we’ve seen of the game, so hopefully producer Keiji Inafame and director Mark Pacini have done everything in their power to give the game a good shot at possibly being a success.
The gameplay time sounds a little low, but then with the slightly reduced price tag for the title, we’d have to say that it kind of makes sense. If you’re looking for a massive months long adventure then ReCore may not be the game for you, but if you’re looking for a short-lift blast with a unique setup behind it then it’ll be worth checking out.
