When you played video games long enough, you finally develop something like “Spidey Sense” when you see the game that seems to be unique. Of course, you never know until the end product is on the tough disk, but more often, this sixth sense is correct.
Replaced, a game of 2.5d completely action, which has an absolutely stunning aesthetics of cyberpunk cyberpneck-with incredible camera work and moody music-hers that sense sense sense. I have already played a tiny three -part demo over a year ago, which only strengthened this feeling that I got for the first time after the first disclosure four years ago. This time I have to play in the first 30 minutes of the campaign and it did nothing to force my enthusiasm for what could be-if the rest of the game provides-universal independent classics in the same category as the abyss, braid, in the middle, Balaatro, etc.
It is obvious since the jump is that the deputy artistic director knows what the hell they are doing. The appearance of this dystopia, embedded in the alternative history of America from the 1980s, takes 16-bit graphics with which I grew up and put them with pliable energetic lighting and absolutely brilliant photos. Put in the right depth of the field and you get a world that looks like survival. Vibrant and despair happen, but they look great in some way.
You play like Reach, an artificial intelligence who lives in a man’s body named Warren, who wakes up after a corpse literally left for the dead among the stack. The world of the city of Phoenix, which you see in front of you, is the evolution of the world nuclear event, which took place a few decades earlier. There are memoirs, press articles and other ephemeral fragments of information about building the world scattered around you to collect and read in your wings-ask about it as the version of the Cyberpunk World from the 80s. Walkman-Meets-pilot.
Replaced simply begins, holding you on the left to the right 2D aircraft, ancient school style and lead a little more than some basic platform. But it determines its setting so incredibly good – and quickly to start. Regardless of whether these are the above -mentioned digital clippings revealing fragments based on radiation, or snipers holding the reflector who will shoot you in one shot, if he notices you, in Phoenix City is clearly gloomy. Soon you will have to fight to survive because you will be forced to throw your hands with a few members of the faction and soon their gangs.
And this is where the replaced impression will impress: Packed the appropriate Batman: Arkham combat system. Enemies who are to attack will get a yellow lightning on their heads. Press y when you see it to counteract them immediately. And then-Moi veterans with Arkham know where it is going-when red lightning appears above the enemy’s head, it means that they intend to free the attack without blocking/possible to appeal, and you need to press the button A at the right time to avoid avoiding. Successful tilting and parquet are charging the Special Battack meter, which in the case of a replaced one means that you can snail-paced down a shot from your found firearm at a distance or you brutally make an enemy if you are in close range. Of course it will be more complicated; Soon the villains holding the rifle will enter the fight, and the time window changes to their (of course) unlocks’ shells. Heavier enemy will also complicate things. There was only one in the first minutes of exchange, and probably from design was not too tough to tango. All his attacks are possible to block, and he needs a lot of hits to come down, but he had no friends before we stood in face, so it was a very basic introduction to massive weights, with which you will face a later match. So I expect that your fist rolls will raise significantly during the executive environment in every sense of the word: number of enemies, difficulty, etc.
Soon replaced began to introduce 2.5D elements, literally expanding his world, allowing me to go to the background or in the foreground to get something that I had to do. You need to catch the garbage cans to slide them in to climb them, to reach a higher ladder or fill the gap, just like one example. Although this opening sequence did not offer me too much freedom of movement in the environment, I know that it will finally be because I saw it earlier in last year’s demo. However, I should add that the discovery sometimes rewards you with pickups, which are often hidden from evident eyes – I will not go so far to call them secrets – and will fill your documentation and shed a little more lithe on this broken world, or give you an update. I would not go so far to say that the replacement will have the ability to repeat, but if the developers do an amazing job in building the history of the city of Phoenix, this can ensure sufficient motivation to come back and find all hidden fragments of information.
This year’s version of the Demo-Reztow, because it was the very beginning of the game-also showed itself the biggest pleasant surprise from my original practical with him last year: RPG is hiding under the aesthetics of Cyberpunk 2.5D. From the first few extremely impressive trailers I thought that it was replaced that “simply” was a jerking action game. But no, it has sections full of NPC from the task and the possibility of free roam. I can’t wait to delve into more.
But back to this latest song, I should take a moment to supplement the music. The moody soundtrack of the synthesizer is the key to nailing the climate in any dystopian cyberpunk, and waste has been replaced that do not confirm that he understands the task in this department. And I would really like to go back to the visual identity of this game for a second. Pixel art, as you can say, is phenomenal, and the utilize of color and lighting is the top shelf, but I would also like to shout animation. I am not sure if it will make sense, but trying retro, supplemented with current visual accents, as in replacement, there is such a thing as an animation that is too good. I would claim that the team of programmers in Sad Cat Studios won the perfect balance here. Neither the range nor his enemies move too smoothly. Instead, they have a slightly fuel movement to them, which only adds to the broken, stimulated spirit of Phoenix City, and sells the Neo-16-bit look still perfectly in my eyes.
When I reached the end of the replaced demo version, I just wanted to play more. It is simply a captivating game from top to bottom and I can’t wait to see where the history of Reach is going, as well as what the deeper story reveals. I would also like to find out how deeper the elements of the fight and RPG are. I would not like anything more than my sense of Spidey to prove correctness and replaced with one of the best and most memorable games from 2026 (even if we already know that the Grand Theft Auto 6 will dominate the headlines). We do not have a replaced release date yet, but I have the impression that it is close. We hope that we will soon find out exactly when we see how special the last game is.
Ryan McCAffrey is the editor -in -chief of Ign Previews and host of both weekly Xbox Show Ign, Unlocked podcastand also our monthly (-ISH) intelligence program, Ign unfiltered. He is a guy from North Jersey, so he is “Taylor Ham”, not “pork roll”. Debatt with him on Twitter at the address @Dmc_ryan.
