There’s a severe drought of sharp looking parkour games at the moment. The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake got canned, and I don’t expect we’ll be seeing anything new of Mirror’s Edge for a while, if ever. Today is a good day for changing that, I think, as Motorslice arrives on the scene bringing the aforementioned running around and doing sick tricks games into conversation with the likes of Shadow of the Colossus and Nier Automata.
I’m not just name-dropping these games for the sake of it, as noted in the game’s launch day Steam post they’re all listed as inspirations (“For Shadow of the Colossus fans who have been wanting to scratch that itch for 20 years. For Nier fans who want a hot girl killing robots… I really hope you enjoy!!!”). And they all appear to be fused quite well in Motorslice.
Where Mirror’s Edge opted for a clean, 2000s era idea of modernism, Motorslice continues that with a brutalist approach, with big walls and spaces to trounce around and clearly designated bits to use your chainsaw on. Massive, hunkering diggers and trunks ripe for climbing on and parrying mirror both Shadow of the Colossus and Nier. And of course, the parkour elements take both from Mirror’s Edge and Prince of Persia, coalescing into something that appears to have found its own voice.
I’ve not had the chance to try it out yet, though I’m keen to now it’s here. What I have been keeping an eye on are its charming if somehow a tad parasocial video dev logs. Go back a little over a year and you’ll find a (lightly suggestive) implementation of a “very touchable main menu“, with further videos attempting to woo you with its tomboyish protagonist, all while showing genuine bits of progress. The Chainsaw Man reference in the final dev log scores it extra points for me too.
If you’ve any interest in picking Motorslice up, you can do so on Steam with a nice little launch discount too.
