Early AccessAttract Mode
12 / wfmag.ccEarly AccessAttract Mode
Re-record, don’t fade away, re-record don’t fade away, re-reco...
et’s make save scumming a thing
of the past. The act of saving your
game at the beginning of your go
on a turn-based strategy title has
long been the preserve of those
who don’t want to live with the consequences
of their actions. Iron Danger looks to make that
act of cowardice into a core mechanic of its
own brand of real-time tactical combat – but
instead of save scumming, you’re time travelling;
rewinding past actions to try again and rework
your decisions. It’s a twist to the typical format,
bringing more dynamism and elements of
real-time strategy to proceedings... oh, and
developer Action Squad Studios describes Iron
Danger as ‘based on Nordic mythology retold in
the vein of Lord of the Rings meets Transformers’.
So there’s that.
Designed from the very beginning with a
rewinding feature at its heart, Iron Danger
offers up a different take on the usual hack-
and-slash batter-‘em-up – a freedom you don’tfind elsewhere. “We were really adamant about
pursuing the time rewind mechanics because it
was something we had not seen before – ever,”
explains Jussi Kemppainen, game director on
Iron Danger. “We were laser-focused on creating
a game that you could not get from anywhere,”
he says. “We wanted to bring something totally
new into the world. Something that had never
existed before and something no-one else was
pursuing at the moment. For our team, that was
the driving force during the sometimes difficult
production process.”
This focus on rewinding meant the game
ended up – naturally – coming out as something
different to the norm, something Kemppainen
is proud of. “For the player, the biggest change
is that they do not need to play it safe,” he says.
“It is totally possible to just run in head-first to
the most intense scenario and then afterwards
try to figure out how to deal with it. If it all goes
sideways, just go back in time as long as possible
and try something completely different. It allows
for unprecedented freedom of exploration of
tactical ideas without the fear of failure.”
This design focus on the rewinding mechanic
did result in some tweaks being made to the
formula, though – no approach à la Dynasty
Warriors was on the cards, as too many enemies
on screen would have, basically, broken things.
It’s a lot of AI logic to rewind at the same time
and reimplement when the player starts going
again. “We resorted to making most of the
enemies incredibly difficult to counter the
[smaller] numbers,” Kemppainen says. “This
proved to be the right decision. With the time
rewind abilities, it is possible to pit yourselfIron Danger
L
GENRE
Timecop tribute
FORMAT
PC
DEVELOPER
Action Squad
Studios
PUBLISHER
Daedalic
Entertainment
RELEASE
25 March 2020Info
Time to breathe, and
always time to rewind.