Portuguese outfit Poke Life Studio and publisher PM Studios released the new teaser trailer for the 1980’s anime-inspired action game for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PC and Xbox One called Evolutis. The new Unity-powered game looks breathtaking and the imagery and animations are nothing short of masterful.
The game’s animation style is a hearkening back to the dark and moody art featured in anime films from the 1980s, but with the kind of emotive expressions and movement based on classical rotoscoping techniques.
A very short but poignant 18 second teaser trailer was released, which you can check out below courtesy of Dante Nintendo Switch World.
According to Nintendo Life, you’ll take on the role of three different playable characters, including the drug addict Erick Warren, who is attempting to get revenge against the people who killed his cousin; Chelsea Williams, an MMA fighter trying to rack up enough cash to keep her dying father alive; and Damon Watts, a man on a mission to find out who is responsible for the disappearance of his supposedly deceased wife.
All three of these stories intertwine with each other throughout a winding and gritty Neo Hong Kong backdrop set in a cyberpunk future.
That sequence above is quite the literal homage to the same scene in the Akira film where Tetsuo began hallucinating that his insides were falling out.
The artwork, once again, looks on point. If I did have a criticism, though, it’s that the one chick, Chelsea, has all the markings of a typical Social (in)Justice archetype. Tough female character? Check. Half the side of her head is shaved? Check. Butch mannerisms? Check. The only thing left to make her a full-fledged trope of the Cornhole Commissars is if she turns out to be a lesbian, which is highly likely if [current year] trends are anything to go by.
On the upside, the studio has mostly focused so far on giving gamers an idea of what the art and gameplay is like.
Outside of the anime-infused fight sequences, the exploration and interactivity is done via side-scrolling segments. They showcased how this will look on their Facebook page, which you can check out below.
Once again, it should go without saying that this is a game that understands what the aesthetic of cyberpunk is all about. That’s not just steeped in disgusting degeneracy and trans pop-culture, two things that normal people (and especially real gamers) don’t care about.
They showed another clip giving you a wider breadth of the cityscape where the story unfolds, and it’s mesmerizing. The color tone, the lights, the architectural design – it’s all how cyberpunk should be, unlike Cyberpunk 2077.
The action sequences involving melee combat and gun-fu play out with dynamic, close-quarter shots with a mostly side-scrolling view of the action. It’s like a typical fighting game but it looks a lot more dynamic and visceral. Damon’s action sequences are extremely brutal, with his John Wick-esque approach to CQC he dismembers and eviscerates his foes at the blink of an eye.
But beyond fisticuffs and gun-fu, there’s also motorcycle chase sequences and even some segments involving a hoverboard.
There’s a ton of potential here with Evolutis and for the life of me I hope that they don’t screw it up by getting woke. That’s the last thing a game like this needs. The concept is on point, the art is righteous, and if they can manage to get a well known retrowave artist to do the soundtrack then this is an absolute sleeper-hit in the making.
You can keep track of the progress of Evolutis as well as check out additional in-game screenshots by visiting the official Facebook page.
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