After Elden Ring, I started feeling cocky. While Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice didn’t quite sync with me (except during one livestream where I was just absolutely kicking ass for some reason), I was ready to give another Souls-like a try.
Steelrising looked fascinating; I love the art direction, and from what I saw the mechanics could be fun.. Plus, they professed to have some difficulty adjustment options should I find it a little TOO challenging.
I pre-ordered and gained access to the beta, and let me tell you.. I’m glad I did.
Apparently, it also has stealth.
Bad stealth, poorly implemented, much like a fair amount of the core mechanics itself.
Here’s the issues with stealth in Steelrising:
You perform stealth attacks by locking on to someone and creeping up on them, but the moment you use the “lock on” mechanic your movement speed is automatically maxed.. No analog movement, which means you’re very likely to make noise as you approach the target, breaking stealth (hopefully they patch this before release day)
If you get just barely within an enemy’s vision range it’s game-over for stealth: They will chase you like a heat-seeking missile instantly.
There is no crouch or way to enhance stealth, as far as I can see. This is just a bonus mechanic shoehorned in.
And that last point brings me to a final thought on Steelrising: Everything feels like they tried to clone various mechanics from Elden Ring and other souls-likes, but failed.
Combat is.. Rough. Blocking, dodging etc all feel awkward (blocking, in particular, is VERY hit or miss on timing). Learning attack patterns of bosses isn’t nearly as clear as it is with games like Elden Ring. Hell, I found myself just repeating the same pattern over and over on the first mini-boss in order to defeat it. Attack twice, dodge, and either wait for the next attack and dodge again or just attack twice and dodge.
It’s a real shame; Steelrising showed a lot of promise, but with my experiences during the early beta, I don’t expect much to be corrected after launch.