Shown for the first time during PlayStation’s State of Play in December 2019, PlatinumGames’ upcoming Babylon’s Fall follows in the genre footsteps of previous Platinum titles Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and Nier: Automata. However, it’s the first time the company has tried to create a live-service experience.
“Square Enix made the request for PlatinumGames to develop the game,” explains producer Junichi Ehara. “The topics we asked for were ‘high fantasy’, ‘hack and slash’, ‘co-op play’ and ‘live-service’.”
Many of these topics sound like a good fit for the company, and co-op is something we’ve been asking for Platinum's biggest titles for quite some time now. On the other hand, the live-service nature of the project raised eyebrows considering the developer’s previous titles have been mostly tight and narrow single-player experiences — though not without some interesting online experiments like Anarchy Reigns.
The original trailer featured a moving castle in the sky and the frenetic and bombastic combat we know and love from the developer. From the infallible bullet-time activation, regular enemies being devastated, and a stunning boss fight against a big enemy that attacked with a huge crystal sword, it looked like classic Platinum.
Since its announcement, the game went dark for quite some time. Since the trailer dropped some months before the start of the pandemic, that’s not too surprising. “It felt like it affected us quite a lot,” development director Kenji Sato explains. “The development style changed to be quite different from how PlatinumGames usually do things, and when we first started remote working, we even thought that developing a game in that way might not be possible. It did take time, and I can’t say it was perfect, but we did finally manage to establish a stable remote working style.”
It wasn’t until 2021 when we received new signs of life from Babylon’s Fall, in the shape of videos showcasing deep dives into different classes, weapons, and cooperation. You can play with up to three friends and select four different weapons to have equipped at all times, including swords, hammers, bows, rods, and shields, as well as using special abilities to travel across levels and perform special actions against enemies. According to director Takahisa Sugiyama, you can have different capabilities and actions depending on how you organize your equipment, even if you pick the same type of weapon for every slot.
One of the most important aspects of how this developer team craft their combat systems has to do with player agency. Titles like Revengeance have a plethora of moves and possibilities for your battles, allowing for player expression. On this opportunity, the team is taking a different approach. “In previous games from Platinum, the developers provided a certain number of different combat options to use, as well as a kind of roadmap for battle itself,” explains Saito. “But in Babylon’s Fall, we tried to make it so the player can customize all of those aspects to work in their own preferred way. The gameplay will change depending on the types of weapons you use, what enchantments you add to them and how you combine them with the gutwork abilities, so the gameplay route you want to take should become visible if you are imaginative.”
Customization also extends to your character's appearance and the loot you find. Contrary to Platinum’s other titles, in which the main protagonist has a strong personality that gives the identity to the game, the directors are betting on this new approach and the creations you make.
Another thing PlatinumGames titles are well-known for is their variety of difficulty options — for instance, there’s a mode that lets you play Bayonetta with only one hand. However, Babylon’s Fall won’t feature multiple difficulty modes. Instead, every quest will have a specific difficulty level. The only thing that can alter how hard the game is is the number of players in-game — enemies’ HP and attack power scales depending on this factor.
Apart from the lack of difficulty options, accessibility options are also scarce. This will hardly come as a surprise for veteran players who have been following the company for years, never finding options in this regard. When asked about this topic, both Saito and Sugiyama explained that the game was going to allow for different ‘control schemes’ and the possibility to remap your buttons; something welcome and rarely found in their previous titles, but still a disappointment.
As a live-service game, Babylon’s Fall has a post-launch roadmap for the different types of content it will receive for the months to come. According to Sugiyama, the first big update (“Ver 1.1.0”) will arrive only a few weeks after launch, containing more story elements, quests, equipment parts, and “high difficulty challenge content”. Fortunately, all this content will be free. The game will also have a Premium Battle Pass for its first season, including mostly cosmetic items. This will also come at no extra cost, and you’ll be able to earn a 50 percent discount for the next Premium Battle Pass in the following season.
Lastly, each director showed their dedication and expectations to the launch of the game. “This is the first-ever live service type game that PlatinumGames have done,” Saito says. “There will be lots of differing opinions about it, but I am confident we have created something that is fun to play, so I invite everyone to give it a go.”
Sugiyama, meanwhile, wanted to speak directly to the fans. “I am sorry we kept everyone waiting so long since the first reveal of the game, but we are now finally able to unveil it to everyone. It was created with a wholehearted wish to continuously deliver the fun and exciting action gameplay that PlatinumGames is so proud of as part of an ongoing service, so we hope you all stay with us for the long term.”
Babylon’s Fall launches on March 3, 2022, on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.