Babylon’s Fall, the new cooperative game of Platinum Games, recently showed up in a new one closed beta. The game appeared completely changed from the first time we saw it and now it seems that the developers have turned it into a dungeon crawler, with elements taken in full hands by industry giants like Monster Hunter and Destiny. Let’s try to take stock of where Platinum is heading and how Babylon’s Fall has changed.
Babylon’s Fall: how has the project changed?
First of all, a bit of history: what is Babylon’s Fall? As we have already said at the beginning, it is an action title by Platinum Games, presented for the first time on the occasion of theE3 of 2017. Then the game seems to have many different characteristics than those it has acquired over the years: at the time it was presented as a single player action game, with spectacular fights that recalled what was seen in NieR Automata, a title in which Platinum played a role in the development.
During the frame of E3 this year, however, the software house has finally shown a new trailer of the project, which it has changed radically over these four years. The “new” Babylon’s Fall has kept the fantasy setting, but has totally changed the graphic style (to be honest, in the beta a few days ago it changed again) and above all it has transformed into a multiplayer game focused on cooperative.
As if that weren’t enough Platinum presented the game as a Game as a Service, that is a title destined to be updated over time with new content and expansions. As for the gameplay, the game director Kenji Saito explained that it will be a dugeon crawler, in which our goal will be to get to the top of the tower of Babylon of the title, where the final boss of the work will probably be found.
Of course, this sudden twist left fans stunned, as just take a quick look at the 2017 trailer to understand that we are faced with two completely different games from each other. The movie indeed showed a fast and frenetic combat system, exactly as we would have expected from Platinum Games, which is no longer present in the new version of the game, which features slow and to say the least basic fights.
The reasons behind this change of course are still not clear, but what is certain is that the soul of Babylon’s Fall has profoundly changed. But where are we now?
Where are we at?
Even a cursory glance at Babylon’s Falls’ new closed beta makes it clear that Platinum plans to focus heavily on the cooperative part of the title, transforming it into a kind of point of contact between loot-based video games like Destiny and products featuring a type of mechanical gameplay like Monster Hunter.
The inspiration for Capcom’s hunting game is not only evident in the fighting, however, since even the gaming hub strongly recalls the villages we have seen in the various titles of the series, complete with a bulletin board from which to accept the missions. Moreover, the levels, or floors of the tower, seem really empty and desolate, totally lacking in the touch of Platinum Games, which has always excelled at building environmental puzzles and platforming sections.
Likewise the combat system does not appear in great shape, with slow and cumbersome animations, while the enemies seem to have abominable amounts of health points and barely react when hit by our shots. In short, from the studio he created Bayonetta we would have expected something more.
A positive note is given by build, which seem to promise some depth in their construction. To influence the latter we have two fundamental elements: the first is the Gideon Coffin, which allows you to equip four weapons at the same time and be ready for any situation. The second is the type of skill set we will choose to use, exactly how it works in MH, but with a more arcade meaning. We can then base all our damage on a single hit after a dodge or on ground combos and so on.
It must be said that the developers have made some improvements since the last beta, but we are still far from excellence. Not to mention that the choice of making the game a Game as a Service is already showing its limits, with repetitive loop gameplay, which however is not accompanied by a good combat system.
Of course, the release date of Babylon’s Fall is still far away, as the game is expected to arrive in 2022, so the hope is that Platinum will be able to improve this title a little more, which has a lot of potential, but is still for the most part unexpressed.