I was an enormous fan of the addictive action and light RPG elements of 2011’s Bastion, and have fond memories of playing the game late at night in my college dorm room, while my roommate wondered who my new friend was with that deep and intimidating voice. So when Supergiant Games pulled back the lid on their latest gaming project this morning, I didn’t need a voiceover narrator to tell me how excited I was.
I was an enormous fan of the addictive action and light RPG elements of 2011’s Bastion, and have fond memories of playing the game late at night in my college dorm room, while my roommate wondered who my new friend was with that deep and intimidating voice. So when Supergiant Games pulled back the lid on their latest gaming project this morning, I didn’t need a voiceover narrator to tell me how excited I was.
The game in question is called Transistor, and it just looks all sorts of awesome. While there’s more to it than this, everything you need to know can be nicely summed up in this sentence from the Supergiant Games website: “Transistor invites players to wield an extraordinary weapon of unknown origin as they explore a stunning futuristic city.”
You’ll play as a young woman named Red who gains control of this powerful weapon from a mysterious group of assailants. The story will follow Red as she fends off these attackers in their violent pursuit to recover the weapon, while piecing together the Transistor’s intriguing history in a search for the weapon’s former owners.
Judging from the debut game trailer, Transistor seems to share a lot of the same gameplay mechanics and characteristics of Bastion; most notably in the styling of enemies and level designs. But where Bastion had a flat and often cartoony-looking 2D world, the dark, futuristic streets of Transistor are brought to life with gorgeous 3D graphics and hugely cinematic animations (I mean, just listen to that sweeping song they use the trailer!).
Supergiant Games anticipates that Transistor will be released in early 2014, and they are still deciding what platforms the game will be available on. Bastion was first released on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam in the summer of 2011 before getting an iOS port the following August, so I could definitely see those as being strong candidates for when Transistor comes around at this time next year.
Supergiant will also be putting up an FAQ to answer our burning questions about Transistor, as well as talking about the game in more detail on Facebook, Twitter, and this week’s PAX East event – where an early playable build of the game will even be available to try!
There’s no word if Transistor will have any kinds of crossovers to the universe of Bastion, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see as more information begins to seep through the cracks in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I’ll have my fingers crossed that Transistor will feature another smooth and sultry voiceover narrator, just like in Bastion.
