There are few joys in videogames as pure as beating one bad guy to death with another bad guy. Upcoming mech-masher sequel Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion might be replacing its predecessor’s Armored Core-esque mechs with more human-scaled power suits, but its potential for spectacular violence only seems to have increased.
In the new gameplay showcase trailer below, developers Marvelous break down just how much you can break down your enemies. Some of the damage type details are a little dry (use bullets on fleshy enemies, lasers on armored ones), but there’s some juicy combat tidbits like tearing huge chunks off giant monsters and proceeding to bludgeon them with their own extremities. Brutal.
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So, the suits might operate on a smaller scale, but the DxM formula of aerial combat with six weapon hardpoints remains unchanged, and the pace of melee combat seems greatly accelerated and combo-heavy. To me, the real interesting stuff is the knockdown and grab systems. When staggered, you can jump on the backs of enemies, Monster Hunter/Dragon’s Dogma style to do extra up-close damage, or (in the case of smaller monsters) just pick them up to hurl at another target, which never gets old.
While throwing bigger monsters around seemingly isn’t an option (although it would be funny), you’ll be able to tear chunks of armor off bigger enemies, or even rip off pieces to use as improvised weapons, with the trailer showing the player clobbering a giant biomechanical ungulate with its own ripped-off blade antlers.
Beyond the stuff shown in the video, Marvelous have talked about Titanic Scion being more of an open-world experience than the mission-based structure of the original, with more options to invite friends to fly around and brutalize post-apocalyptic cyber-wildlife with you. It doesn’t look like it’ll be skimping on the setpieces either, with my interest especially piqued by some teasing glimpses at space combat, with power-suits brawling with starfighters as capital ships clobber each other with giant beam cannons, Freespace-style.
Titanic Scion is scheduled for a Steam launch on September 5th, but in the meantime, the original Daemon X Machina is steeply discounted on Steam this week, bringing it down to a very reasonable £8/$10 until May 12th. For those left hungry for more high-speed mecha action after Armored Core 6, it’s not a bad stopgap, even if Chris Scullion’s review found some flaws. Just beware its greatest danger: An overwritten script with exhaustingly constant radio chatter and rambling pre/post mission dialogue. If you end up tuning out and skipping to the mech fights, I can’t blame you.
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