Think about a Thirties New York the place expertise had been created to drift components of the town into the sky, flying automobiles had been widespread, and everybody spoke with sufficient pulp to place Humphrey Bogart to disgrace. That is the world of Aether & Iron, a brand new detective sport, by Seismic Squirrel.
At SGF we had an opportunity to sit down down with Tyler Whitney, Narrative Lead, and Joshua Enz, Producer, to speak about what impressed the sport, what expertise gamers can look ahead to, and even obtained a while arms on to discover a picturesque bar within the clouds, tackle a mysterious man in automobile on automobile fight, and discover our dwelling base.
What A World To Reside In
In Aether & Iron, gamers tackle the function of Gia, a down-on-her-luck detective who has had one too many roles go sideways. Returning to her employer, Mr Black, she’s handed the job of escorting Nellie to the Lowers.
This job shortly escalates as each Gia and Nellie are thrown into hazard and essential and mysterious paperwork that Nellie was holding shut are stolen.
The sport is damaged up into two gameplay types, the primary is exploration. As Gia you’ll work together with scenes and places, having conversations with these you come throughout, or maybe discover an merchandise or two to choose up to be used later.
My first expertise of exploration was in a bar with a glass flooring, the view extending right down to nothing however clouds beneath, the inside decked out as you’d anticipate a speakeasy of the time, however with a ‘Neo-Decopunk’ aesthetic.
When requested about what led to the thought of merging the previous, of Thirties New York with a futuristic idea like that of Aether, the easy response from Whitney was that “we all know that we need to have one thing stunning, however was completely different.” Whitney additionally supplied up his love of flicks like 2004’s Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, although he jokingly accepted that he could be within the minority for that.
Seeing the gleaming skyline of the town it jogged my memory of the Metropolis of Superman’s Silver Age. Stunning skyscrapers that let you know that this can be a secure and wonderful place to stay, that is ignoring the opposite places on this sport.
After selecting up a bottle of booze and prodding the passed-out drunk, I approached the bar to open dialogue with the barkeep, a fellow worker of Mr Black.
Discover And Work together With The World of Aether & Iron
Dialogue in Aether & Iron is totally voiced, letting you actually get sucked into the noir dialogue full of flowery phrasing and an inner monologue that exposits with out feeling prefer it’s spoonfeeding data to the participant.
Further Voice & Textual content Choices On The WayIt was defined to me that after Aether & Iron launches on the finish of the yr they are going to be including Spanish and Chinese language textual content localization, in addition to working so as to add Spanish and Japanese Voices
Whitney attributed the eagerness for this style with characters like Phillip Marlowe. He spoke about how he was given reign to write down and that he then made it “flowery as hell.” He needed to write down in a approach that will make you’re feeling, he laughed referencing the road “strolling a knifed edge with naked toes” and the way even now the considered that made his toes curl in response.
At varied factors in dialog you will be prompted with decisions, these could be of no consequence merely transferring the dialog ahead, might solely be doable in case you have a sure merchandise, or may very well be settled with a speech test.
A component of the speech checks that I liked had been the inclusion of cube rolls. Every would immediate you to roll two cube, add your related stats, and any companion bonuses to attempt to meet the issue degree of the test. You could be attempting to idiot somebody, get some further data out of them, or press your luck with an intimidating assertion.
The Selections… And Penalties Of Dialogue
Whereas I cleared many of the speech checks throughout my time enjoying, incomes further expertise and incomes further cash for Gia, there was one extraordinarily tough test that I failed. This did not result in any instant unfavourable repercussions however as a substitute a humorous second the place Nellie made enjoyable of Gia and her very apparent try at mendacity.Â
It won’t have earned me expertise as a personality, however as a participant, it confirmed a facet to this new character I hadn’t seen but and endeared me additional to her.
I requested about what sorts of unfavourable repercussions there may very well be, and when you failed sufficient, if there have been “fail states” the place you’d should revert to a save. The reply I obtained was fairly shocking as there might undoubtedly be eventualities the place you retain speaking again and find yourself getting shot due to it.
Every of those fail states are offered with the thought of a retro newspaper spinning up in direction of the display. When one occurs it is one thing monumental sufficient that it will make the entrance web page, Whitney defined that internally they “view them as hidden collectibles.”
The alternatives that you simply make throughout the story of Aether & Iron every have various weights and a few may even result in unique branched narrative paths.
Aether & Iron is predicted to take about 20 hours for an preliminary playthrough, and Whitney mused that when you knew precisely what you had been doing it will take about three playthroughs to see the whole lot, however I am guessing when you’re getting into blind it’d take rather a lot longer.
Because of the approach you not solely work together with the world, but in addition choose up and develop relationships with completely different characters and factions of Aether & Iron there are at present ~16 completely different endings. These aren’t all wholly distinctive however very like a sport like Fallout has endings for particular person character tales, faction plots, and the general sport every of the permutations can lend to 1 one other.
Time To Hit The Highway
Outdoors of exploration and interrogation when making your approach throughout the town there are occasions that may immediate comparable to highway fight.
Right here the fight is turnbased, performing on a grid the place each flip you have got a sure variety of actions you may carry out. You’ll be able to ram your automobile or unleash a shotgun blast, or just shift from lane to lane.
A neat aspect of motion is that whereas shifting lanes left and proper you will dissipate some extent of stamina, however going up and down (accelerating and decelerating) you have got full freedom.
Different dynamic components of this fight had been different drivers on the highway, that you could possibly use to get inbetween your self and whoever you are dealing with, and likewise lanes that seem and disappear throughout fight. Similar to actual life you might be requested to merge or shift lane in order to remain on the highway, make sure you concentrate!
Rooted In Historical past
An fascinating facet of Aether & Iron for historical past buffs is that there are specific characters and components which might be rooted in the actual life historical past of New York. An instance given was that of the White Wings, the group of uniformed cleaners for New York established in 1895 by Colonel George E. Waring Jr.
Every of the segments of New York which have taken to the skies in Aether & Iron operate like firm cities, with a company on the head, and one in all these factions is a militaristic group of cleaners.
It is by creating the world first, after which making a story that inhabits it that the staff hopes to create “a world that others really feel so immersed in that once they stroll away they proceed to play of their heads.”
TechRaptor was capable of preview Aether & Iron at Summer season Sport Fest 2025
