If you’ve ever played platformers with great movement, like A Hat in Time, and enjoyed competing with your friends for times, then Astral Tracks looks to be exactly the game for you.
It features procedurally generated levels with wall-running, airdashing, and grappling hooks, all with 12-player cross-platform online battles.
We’re given no release date yet, but the announcement shows off quite a bit of content in just a single minute of gameplay.
We’re shown many different level variations, the local multiplayer, and some cosmetics, and we can get a pretty good idea of how this game will play. If you liked Fall Guys, you’d probably want to check this out.
What’s in the trailer?
Right from the bat, this game has a pretty high-tech aesthetic, with most levels comprising futuristic-looking platforms deep in space.
While some more varied and exciting designs would be neat, this means we can see a ton more done with the procedural generation, and these levels get pretty intricate.
We see a character dashing into a wall and wall-running, which I think can be done on any wall that glows, leading to many shortcuts you’d have to make up on the fly.
There’s a level that requires weaving through a few blocks to round some corners, and we see someone catching up to the people in front of them by taking a different route.
There are occasionally yellow glowing platforms, which I believe act like checkpoints. Whether these just let you respawn there when you die or are required to finish the level is yet to be seen.
We then see characters grappling from one platform to the next; these grapple points occasionally swing you and carry your momentum, which is always fun.
We see a slide having everyone plummet down while still trying not to slip into the void, along with some glass barriers that need to be broken.
We know the line “Duck Based Economy,” which is left vague on purpose, but at least they clarify that no real-world money will be necessary; all the cosmetics will be acquired by playing the game.
We see a very sped-up view of character customization, which I’ll try and digest here. First, you can choose from a few different body types, and for every step, you can change the color palette using a color picker.
We see them go through backpacks, left-hand accessories, right-hand accessories, and shoes and customize them with unique colors.
Overall, the gameplay of Astral Tracks will be hopping into a lobby with either random players or friends, maybe collecting ducks, getting scored depending on how well you did in the match, then using those points to buy cosmetics, rinsing and repeating and playing through new levels each time.
The Steam page also says there will be limited-time challenges to complete, leaderboards, and multiple modes.
No platforms have been announced yet, so we gotta wait to see when we can get our hands on Astral Tracks.
Given that it’s made in Unreal Engine and stated there would be cross-platform play, I’d guess it’s probably coming to PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 around the same time, and maybe Switch and older-gen consoles.
Further Reading
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