Author: Trafficblast

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

With martial arts brawler Sifu, developer Sloclap is hoping to capture the meaning of kung fu, creating an experience of learning and mastery through practice. According to Sloclap co-founder and CEO Pierre Tarno, that means you should expect to die a lot as you brawl your way through the game. But as you do, you’ll become older, wiser, and stronger–both as a player and as a character.

Sloclap recently gave GameSpot a hands-off look at the three of Sifu’s five different levels, providing a more complete understanding of what your quest for revenge will actually play like. It’s a game that focuses heavily on executing combos, parrying incoming attacks, reading your opponent, and improvising to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed–and each death is a learning experience that makes you stronger next time.

You play a kung fu student whose family is murdered and you set out on a one-day quest for revenge against the five kung fu fighters responsible. To get to them, you have to fight through five different levels filled with each boss’s fighters.

In combat, Sifu will probably be familiar to fans of similar action games, including Sloclap’s precious martial arts title, Absolver. You execute combos through different combinations of light and heavy attacks, while also dodging, blocking, and parrying your enemies’ moves. Tarno said players should expect the game to be pretty challenging, and we got that impression from the hands-off presentation–enemies come at you fast and often in big groups, requiring you to learn how to deal with their moves, isolate fighters, and control the crowd.

You can’t just block your way to victory; you have a gauge that measures your guard strength, and as you take hits or block blows, it fills up, indicating when your guard will be broken, leaving you stunned. Enemies also have a similar gauge, and filling it leaves them open for a quick, cinematic takedown, while also replenishing some health. So there’s an incentive to play aggressively, especially because even taking a few hits can cost you dearly in health. Thanks to a special amulet that you wear, being defeated doesn’t mean you die–you just pop right back up to go on brawling. However, your age progresses significantly every time you’re killed, and if you age too much on a run, it’s game over. You’ll revisit these levels over and over, learning how to better handle them, with the goal being to finish the game without taking much of a beating.

“You’re going to want to finish the game as young as possible, because one of the themes that is related to aging is that question of the cost of revenge,” Tarno explained. “More likely than not, the first time you complete the game and beat all five enemies, you’ll be pretty old. So the character has devoted, in one day, 50 years of life in the pursuit of vengeance, and so, was it really worth it? And can you get your vengeance without spending your whole life on it?”

We didn’t see the aging mechanic in action, but Tarno told us a bit about how it works. He said the fantasy at play is the idea of becoming a wise master, but the drawback is that getting older takes a toll on your body.

“We’re still refining design on that front, but we’re currently playing with this idea where there’s this old master thing, where your attacks are more precise, more devastating, so you do more damage, but your body is growing old so you’re slightly weaker, so you’ve got less HP,” he said. “So you do more damage but you can receive less damage, so it’s sort of a balance exercise, which should orient you toward a more aggressive playstyle as you grow older, because you can suffer less damage. That’s sort of the idea we’re going for. But you won’t have a weaker character because that would be a bit depressing, I guess, if every time you revived you’d be weaker and weaker and so have less and less chance of moving forward in the game.”

We saw a brief portion of three different locations from the game: an apartment building, a nightclub that houses a secret fight club, and a museum. Each one presents a different kind of environment to fight through, and it’s essential that you pay attention to and use your surroundings, because taking advantage of the space around you is key to staying alive. In the apartment building, you fight your way up a big central staircase, which means you can potentially throw enemies over the railing into space. If you’re close to a wall or a ledge, you can bounce an enemy’s head off it or throw them into it. Pushing someone down a flight of stairs or out a window helps you to eliminate enemies quickly, and anything from empty glass bottles to pieces of furniture can potentially be a weapon to give you the upper hand.

From the looks of things, Sifu’s combat is all about keeping control of the situation, or getting out of harm’s way quickly. At one point in the nightclub, the player was backed into a corner, so they quickly scrambled up a decorative lattice on the wall behind them to reach the floor above. At another point, the player quickly rolled over a couch to put some distance between themselves and some enemies that were surrounding them.

“It’s the sort of Jackie Chan fantasy of putting the environment between you and your enemies,” Tarno said. In the demo, after climbing the wall, the player was then able to attack two enemies as they ran up a flight of stairs to catch up, nailing one by throwing a bottle to isolate and beat down the other.

You can also unlock different moves that let you throw enemies into one another, swap places with them, or knock them down. Unlocking those moves and working them into your combos allows you to constantly think about how to control the fight, even when facing a crowd.

The same goes for when you’re fighting enemies with weapons. Knock an enemy down, and you disarm them, so you want to be thinking about how to get enemies off their feet and out of the fight before they slash you with a machete or nail you with a baseball bat. You can then grab their weapons for yourself–although Tarno said that weapon durability is pretty low, so don’t expect to carry the same blade or metal pipe through the whole game.

Finally, fighting well builds up a resource for your character called Focus. When you’ve got enough Focus, you can briefly slow down time, allowing you to pick from a group of powerful moves that have specific effects. One move might leave an enemy stunned, while another might knock them down or do extra damage. You can also unlock moves specific to the weapons you find, like blades, to deal massive damage under the right circumstances.

It seems like Sifu will have a whole lot of options for fighting, and it might be a lot to keep track of. Tarno said the player character has around 150 different attack moves, all created with the help of a real-life Pak Mai kung fu master, and that doesn’t count the many takedown moves. But you won’t have access to every move every time you play the game, as Tarno explained. Instead, it’ll take you time to unlock various different abilities, and for a while, you’ll only have them in a specific run.

As you rack up combos and beat enemies, you’ll earn experience points you can then spend at certain places to unlock new moves–either shrines you find in levels, which convey something like perks that only last through a given run through the game, or at your wuguan, the kung fu school you return to between levels. But while you can unlock a move during a run, you’ll lose it if you age out and die until you’ve spent enough points to unlock it permanently. That’ll give you time to figure out which abilities you like and want to use in your kung fu, and which you don’t.

That gives Sifu a bit of a roguelike flair, although Tarno clarified that the battles you’ll encounter are hand-crafted and the levels aren’t random. What’s different each time is the set of perks and moves you might have unlocked, especially as you fight and age. There are also elements of randomness as you play through a level. If you efficiently wail on a group of enemies, the one or two left standing might surrender, allowing you to avoid fighting them or even question them for information about the boss you’re chasing or what lies ahead in the level. But in the same situation, an enemy might become the “last man standing,” gaining a health boost and unlocking additional combos to become something like a miniboss. All the enemies have access to the same moves you do, so fighting these boosted characters will be a test of your knowledge and experience, and they can pop up semi-randomly.

So there are roguelike elements at play in Sifu, mixing up the play of a straightforward action game so that every run through the game isn’t exactly the same. But you’ll also be unlocking things that will persist between runs. Tarno described another element, a menu called the Detectiveboard, where you’ll gather information about each of the bosses and the levels as you play through them. The more info you have, the more paths you might unlock in a level, allowing you to access shortcuts to avoid fights. Again, the theme is mastery through practice, so you’ll replay levels over and over, learning their ins and outs and gathering info on your Detectiveboard, while also becoming a better fighter and unlocking more and more moves. It sounds like we can also expect multiple endings from Sifu; once you’ve cleared all five levels, Tarno said, you might want to reconsider your actions as you play again.

“There is that notion of runs because eventually, the objective of the game, beyond seeing the first ending, is that once you’ve tackled your vengeance, you’ll understand that the way you wreak vengeance is not compatible with the values of your clan, your family, or kung fu,” he said. “So you’re going to get your vengeance in a different way without being as violent toward the bosses, et cetera.”

Though we only saw three brief sections of the game, it seems like all those systems will work together to make Sifu a pretty deep action experience, but one that’s excitingly cinematic. The focus on paying attention to and using the environment makes for some great improvised moments, like one in which the player battles a gang of enemies in a museum exhibit with a giant kunai-shaped pendulum–which swings around the room, nailing people and stunning them. There are also moments where the camera will shift perspective, like a hallway full of enemies that suddenly adopts a side-scrolling perspective, which Tarno said was an homage to the movie Old Boy and to classic 2D brawlers.

Tarno also said that, since this is an action game in which timing for blocks, parries, and strikes is essential, visual fidelity is something Sloclap is focused on. Expect the game to run at 60fps on both Playstation 4 and Playstation 5, Tarno said, and in 4K on PS5.

Everything we saw in the hands-off presentation makes Sifu look like an impressive, if tough and demanding, action game–one in which you’ll want to keep practicing to become a kung fu master.

Sifu is set to release on PS4, PS5, and PC on February 22.

Though the game isn’t a roguelike, with its levels and encounters hand-crafted, it is a game in which you’ll be running through levels over and over again, trying to bring what you learned in your past attempts at gaining your revenge to become a more efficient fighter.

We got a pretty extensive hands-off look at Sifu, in which we learned quite a bit about how the game works and what combat will be like when players actually get their hands on it. The game is all about fighting groups of enemies, where you’ll need to rely on combos, blocking, parrying, and smart use of your environment to stay alive and get the upper hand. Improvisation and adaptation are key–but you’re still probably going to lose quite a bit.

In Sifu, you play a kung fu student whose family has been murdered, and you set out to take your revenge on the five kung fu bosses responsible. Thanks to a special amulet, if you fall in battle, you don’t die–instead, years are taken off your life, causing you to age. We didn’t see the aging mechanic in action, but Sloclap co-founder and CEO Pierre Tarno explained a lot about how it’ll work, as well as what we can expect from combat, how you’ll unlock new moves, and what you can expect as you seek your revenge and discover what it’ll cost you. The footage shown is from the previously released Sifu trailers, and any gameplay shown is from a work in progress build. Sifu is set to release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC on February 22.

Following reports about Ubisoft’s alleged toxic, frat house culture, the French publisher has announced the appointment of a new Chief Creative Officer who will be responsible for working with the company’s studios to “include diverse perspectives and sensibilities.” However, a Ubisoft workers’ advocacy group has expressed some concerns.

Igor Manceau, a 20-year veteran at Ubisoft who most recently worked as creative director on Riders Republic, will be the new Chief Creative Officer, reporting to CEO Yves Guillemot. Manceau will also join Ubisoft’s Executive Committee.

Serge Hascoet was Ubisoft’s previous Chief Creative Officer. He was called out for abusing his significant influence over staff and encouraging a toxic work environment. Guillemot stepped into the role in the interim.

The Chief Creative Officer role is a big and important one at Ubisoft. The publisher said Manceau will be in charge of “defining and nurturing Ubisoft’s overall creative vision and guiding the creative direction of its games so that they are accessible, irresistible, and enriching for all players.”

“Manceau will work closely with stakeholders in all the company’s studios to include diverse perspectives and sensibilities that will feed the creative spirit of the group,” Ubisoft said.

Manceau will work closely with Ubisoft’s Chief Studios Operating Officer, Virginie Haas, and Chief Portfolio Officer Sandrine Caloiaro in his new role. They will work together to “organically grow Ubisoft’s owned franchises and identify opportunities to create new titles that can succeed in new or emerging game genres.”

Regarding Manceau’s own personal journey at Ubisoft, he started with the company in 1998 on the business marketing team before getting promoted to director of editorial marketing for Ubisoft’s Montreal studio in 2003. In 2006, he moved to a new team that came up with concepts for casual games and then he became a creative consultant on the Assassin’s Creed series, among others. He moved to Ubisoft Annecy in 2014 to become the creative director on Steep and held the same role for Annecy’s Riders Republic, which releases in October.

“It is a real honor for me to lead and support the passionate and incredibly talented group of people responsible for the creative direction of Ubisoft’s games,” Manceau said in a statement. “We have some of the best creative minds in the industry at Ubisoft, and I’m looking forward to partnering with them to increase our games’ focus on innovation, quality and differentiation, so that we’re continuing to deliver truly memorable, entertaining, and enriching experiences for our players.”

Guillemot said Manceau is “one of the most experienced, innovative, and well-respected creative directors at Ubisoft and in the video game industry at large.”

A Ubisoft workers’ advocacy group, A Better Ubisoft, responded to the news of Manceau getting promoted. The group said it looks forward to working with Manceau to promote change, but it also acknowledged the “shocking lack of diversity” among Ubisoft’s executive teams. “Currently, as it stands, the creative team at Ubisoft is comprised of white people who are of uniform cultural backgrounds.” You can read the full statement below.

Even more quick shots

For six years, the Life Is Strange series has consistently told stories about the ties that bind us, between friends, families, and communities. The latest entry, True Colors, represents the first time subtext becomes not just text, but the game’s core mechanic. The strength of Life Is Strange as a series is how it always seeks to answers the deeper questions about why people are the way they are, but even compared to the original Life is Strange protagonist Max Caulfield seeking to untangle her best friend’s life, or Sean and Daniel Diaz of Life is Strange 2 being at the mercy of an increasingly merciless America, True Colors drills deeper. It features a new hero who can delve into peoples’ lives on a level beyond the capabilities of the series’ other protagonists. That ability lets the game traverse some new, fascinating territory for this series, but it’s still a bit too bashful about staying there for too long..

You play as Alex Chen, a child of the foster care system who was separated from her big brother Gabe when she was 10. She bounced from family to facility and back again for over a decade before, finally, Gabe tracked her down and invited her to his new home of Haven Springs, an idyllic little village in Colorado. While it’s seemingly a peaceful-enough place to start a life, Alex is helpless when it comes to her big secret and the game’s supernatural hook: Alex is a superpowered empath who is not only able to see and read peoples’ emotions as giant bursts of psychedelic colors, but if the emotion is strong enough, she will actually inherit it. Unfortunately, the foster care system not exactly being the happiest place on earth means Alex finds herself consumed by crippling depressive episodes and extreme fits of rage beyond her control.

And so, as Alex begins her new life, Haven Springs starts to rub off on her, in more ways than one. When a major tragedy strikes the town, keeping the peace becomes an imperative, and it’s about protecting herself just as much as it is about protecting the town. For the most part, True Colors operates the same way as every other Life Is Strange title: As Alex, you walk around and interact with everything and everyone the game will allow you to, occasionally making crucial, life-changing choices through dialogue that affect the world and the course of the story. On the technical level, there are a few marked improvements over past games in the series, especially in terms of visuals. This is the most gorgeous and lush Life is Strange game, with a huge, impressive improvement to the character performances, though it comes at a price. The PS5 port we tested took some heavy hits in frame rate when wandering around the town and stuttered elsewhere. The PC port handled much better, but even there, keeping up with the workload isn’t easy on the computer.

Mechanically, though, there’s one major addition: There will frequently be the option for Alex to use her powers and read the true emotions from a person’s mind, or feel the emotional attachments and memories associated with an object in the environment. At its most benign and hilarious, Alex can see someone having an outwardly civil phone conversation with a customer service rep, only to use her power to hear them internally having an absolute toddler tantrum. At its most harrowing, Alex can read a scared child, only to see the fear physically manifest as a fire-breathing abyssal maw, ready to swallow the child whole at any moment. It allows True Colors to play around with visuals in a way we haven’t seen, and on PS5, there’s a thoughtful use of the DualSense’s haptics that adds another nice layer of immersion to how much of an effect Alex’s powers are having on her.

It would be all too easy to make Alex’s life a screaming hellscape, with her unable to hide from humanity’s worst and most primal instincts, but thankfully, True Colors shows more restraint than that. The vibe is more of a “life comes at you fast” approach where heartache and disappointment creep up and sideswipe Alex rather than flooding over her at all times. The restraint makes the moments where darkness and negativity do pervade land much better. But, for long stretches, the pendulum almost swings too far in the other direction. True Colors is almost too kind as a narrative. Every single character and NPC has a baseline niceness that, while comfortable and soothing, borders on disingenuous given the grim emotional stakes. There’s a Gilmore Girls-y vibe to the whole thing; even most of the bastards have their charms, and there aren’t a lot of bastards to begin with. The other Life Is Strange games–even Dontnod’s Tell Me Why–were more balanced in that regard.

There is still, however, a pitch-black undercurrent to the game, asking big questions about sickness, death, grief, parenting, relationships, and what it costs to empathize with or forgive the monsters who threaten us. Where the game is most impressive is in asking questions that don’t have easy answers, and it does recognize that in the spots where it counts the most. One of the most harrowing moments in the game involves Alex comforting a mother who’s lost the love of her life, a man who eagerly wanted to be stepfather to her child. The resolution ends up in an unexpected place, with Alex reading the woman’s emotions and discovering she secretly resents her child for robbing her of her agency. Even more impressive is the fact that this is not a scenario with an easy solution. Alex using her powers to influence the situation ends up backfiring in a huge way later. This is a problem that Alex cannot solve, and she has to figure out the best way to offer herself and her support to the mother. There are a few situations in the game that maintain that level of maturity, and its final chapter is absolute perfection in that regard: an incredible, ambitious sequence of abstract storytelling, flashbacks, flash-forwards, creepy hallucinations, and beautiful catharsis. But by and large, the game settles for being syrupy sweet and heartfelt. It’s a town where the local Nextdoor equivalent is a quirky place populated by residents telling good-natured in-jokes, the local bar is full of awkward couples who are all nice to their servers, landlords willingly defer rent while a tenant is bereaved, and the local cop is a kindly schlub.

Haven Springs is a lovely place to visit, especially nowadays. These are people who deserve to have an empath in their midst, helping them process their negativity and fear into something healthier, and it’s a perfect place for Alex to truly come into her own as a person. But the feedback loop is a little stilted. With few exceptions, Alex’s immense kindness only comes back to her toward the end of the game. She is essentially the catalyst for anything happening in town. But Alex’s own actualization comes from trauma, when she is utterly alone. The typical video game structure of you, the player, being the only one shouldering the burden for an entire community feels more unfair than usual here, and for a game that so wants us to buy into the idea of Haven Springs as a community, that lopsided generosity comes off as a little awkward. The primary complaint really is that previous games in this series had cynicism that our protagonists had to rise above, and the journey to do so felt like more of a struggle, which is something that Life is Strange: True Colors lacks. Until the climax, Alex’s journey feels low-stakes across the board, even when it arrives at difficult solutions to problems. It’s never in doubt that Alex might persevere and leave Haven Springs better than how she found it.

Gallery

There’s merit in that approach, especially given how the other games have ended on such emotionally devastating notes. Alex being able to just purely help, without compromise, feels good in the moment. This is a game full of well-drawn places and characters with depth and stories worth telling, a game of diners and ice cream shops, flower-covered houses, golden sunsets, and blissful spring festivals. It’s a town that puts together an entire town-wide LARP session just for the sake of making one little boy feel better about his life.

There is light that developer Deck Nine just never allows darkness to touch, and there is joy to be had in being able to play some small part in making sure they all do better. But the disconnect between that vibe and the turmoil that brought Alex here to begin with is tangible, and the game would achieve brilliance if those two concerns could connect. Dropping by Haven Springs is still time well-spent–but it’s simply a pleasant visit, rather than a powerful, emotionally resonant one.