GreedFall Devs Starting Testing for New Game Steelrising

GreedFall, the action RPG from developer Spiders, was one of the top underrated games of the past two years. Despite average reviews, the game's popularity grew due to it fitting a gap in a high-demand genre. Now Spiders is moving on to its next project, a game GreedFall fans are hoping only improves on everything they like about Spiders' work. Fans may soon get the chance to see for themselves, as Spiders is requesting players register for an upcoming Steelrising playtest.

Spiders announced on Twitter that the first Steelrising playtest is now scheduled. It'll start at the beginning of March and will last between 7 and 10 days. A finalized start date is still being decided, but should be shared soon. It is not an open playtest, which means that not everyone who registers will be invited. Spiders will also be employing an NDA for the playtest, meaning those who are accepted won't be allowed to discuss their experiences.

The scope of the Steelrising playtest hasn't been confirmed yet, either. However, given that Steelrising is a single-player action RPG much like the other games that Spiders has released, fans can probably make some basic assumptions. Fans can likely imagine a demo of GreedFall, only set in a sci-fi/steampunk version of the French Revolution.

While Spiders doesn't make it explicit, this is likely to be just the first test for Steelrising. Those who don't get invited to participate will get a chance later. Steelrising doesn't have a release date, yet, so there's plenty of time to have further tests. There's clearly plenty of more information to come about Steelrising in the months ahead.

The French game studio Spiders is starting to develop a unique identity. In 2019, it released GreedFall, an action RPG about fictional seafaring nations arriving on an island filled with treasure and magic and attempting to colonize it. It's up to the player to decide whether they want to choose one of the many factions competing for control of the island or to help the island's natives fight back. It reads as a pretty clear historical allegory for the Age of Exploration, when European nations traveled the globe in search of land in wealth. Now Spiders is moving on to another historically inspired game in the form of SteelRising.

It seems appropriate that SteelRising's French developer is telling a story set in the time of King Louis XVI, the last king of France. In this alternate reality, Louis XVI is terrorizing the people of Paris with his automaton army, and the player will join the rebellion and do battle with these automatons in another action RPG. It's certainly a fresh take on the French Revolution, and such a unique premise might help Spiders keep furthering itself in the public eye. Details on the game may be scarce, but considering all the complicated context of this point in history, there's certainly as much to explore as the Age of Exploration offered for GreedFall.

The French Revolution was a chaotic and unstable time in which the government saw multiple upheavals. It was also very violent, with many people from both sides of the conflict meeting their deaths at the guillotine. As a result, SteelRising will likely make commentary on the social inequalities that motivated the war, as t he French Revolution was largely driven by common people fed up with the way they were treated by nobility. Louis XVI is clearly the main antagonist, but the game is sure to have references to lots of other French nobles, like Marie Antoinette. If SteelRising is anything like GreedFall, players might even get the option to side with the crown and thwart the revolution.