Author: Game Infliction

Once BioShock Infinite’s protagonist Booker DeWitt arrives in the floating city of Columbia, the local police set about getting a description of the False Prophet they’ve anticipated for so long. Only trouble is, they’ve spent years whipping the populace into a frenzy of xenophobic fear. And when they speak to eyewitnesses, bigoted terror is all they’re getting back.

We hear on the radio that Booker is either a mixed-race dwarf, or a French man with a missing left eye – no more than four foot and nine inches. And when DeWitt stumbles across a sketch artist putting together a facial composite, the overheard conversation is farcical.

“He was taller than that… slimmer. His eyes were further apart. Bigger than that. Squinty. His hair was… hmm, red and curly? He looked Irish to me. Yes, like that. Oh, he was certainly an anarchist. You can spot them anywhere, you know.”

It’s silly, but it’s one of BioShock Infinite’s subtlest touches – a way for developer Irrational Games to demonstrate how a backward society is undone by its own narrow belief system. And it sprung to mind during this summer’s Xbox Showcase, where Clockwork Revolution finally got an extensive reveal.

BioShock Infinite was the immediate and obvious reference point for a first-person action game dealing in turn-of-the-century Victoriana and time-twisting mechanics. While we’ll be “playing in the mud”, not up in the skies, InXile’s new game depicts a society where power imbalance has led to a powder keg atmosphere. Here, shootouts are fought with old-timey rifles and temporal magic on factory floors. With a flick of your wrist, you can turn a pile of rubble back into a wall, then take cover behind it. It’s all very consistent with our memories of Irrational’s swansong.

There’s even an early scene in which an aristocrat, fizzing with outrage in the lobby of a police station, offers an eyewitness description of a burglary suspect. “Tall… built rather slim,” the lord mutters to a mechanical constable. “Well, muscular. Was very quick, agile. With a moustache. No, larger!”

This time, though, the takeaway is very different. It’s not bigotry that InXile is highlighting, but the flexibility of its character creation tools. Because at its core, Clockwork Revolution isn’t a first-person shooter, but a western RPG in the tradition of Wasteland, The Bard’s Tale and Planescape: Torment – all the games the studio has delivered successors to in the past.

At the outset of a campaign, you can define your background as a Gearsmith who scavenged their way through life, or a Bookwarden who was saved from the orphanage by a wealthy sociologist. You’ll pick from traits with names like Street Stalker and Steam Whisperer, and distribute attribute points to determine your resistance to chemicals or flair for conversation. Your journeys back to the past will send ripples into the future, changing the nature of the city around you – a tantalising prospect for fans of RPG reactivity.

In fact, despite initial appearances, Clockwork Revolution has less in common with Ken Levine’s opus than it does with The Outer Worlds 2. Obsidian’s upcoming sequel, also featured in this year’s Xbox Games Showcase, is similarly focused on reactive worldbuilding and the many little custom quirks that make up a truly unique player character. As game director Brandon Adler explained during The Outer Worlds 2’s Direct, you’re cast in the role of an Earth Directorate agent – basically a sky marshal. But the game doesn’t lock down your character’s background or personality. You might have joined the Directorate to escape outstanding warrants for crimes you’ve committed. Or you may be a fraud, coasting on a deadly reputation you earned through an accidental killing. You can’t be a Gearsmith, but you can be a Roustabout who fails upwards.

Both games also share a Wizard-of-Oz quality to their art direction, with slightly garish palettes and over-ornate armour designs that look as if they could have been picked out by Jon M. Chu. They don’t scream to be taken terribly seriously – particularly not when, in Clockwork Revolution, a mechanical doll is screaming to “keep your filthy pickers off me”. In each case, that over-the-top tone actually helps support the granular RPG systems. It creates room for character decisions that don’t just conform to the greatest hits of the genre.

For a tangible example of that last point, take a look at Flaws in The Outer Worlds 2. If you take Bad Knees, you’ll move faster throughout the game – but your joints will pop every time you stand up from a crouch, signalling your position to nearby enemies. And if you’re a Kleptomaniac, your character will sometimes nab an item you’re looking at in a shop without warning – leaving you with the task of explaining yourself to the guards. Is that tradeoff worth the better prices you’ll get when selling loot? Only you can decide.

In an unconventional power fantasy, you can choose to be Dumb in Obsidian’s RPG – allowing you not only to embarrass yourself in conversation, but to fix a computer by shoving a tin of hot dogs into the fuse box. This scope for wilfully idiotic decision-making is definitely reflected in Clockwork Revolution, too – as when, in the trailer, the protagonist repeatedly ignores an intimidating shopkeep named Uncle Alfie to talk to his underling Errol instead. A couple of unwise dialogue choices later, poor Errol is splattered across the floor, his head bashed in with a candlestick by his agitated employer. “Brains,” chuckles Alfie. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Scenarios like these are laugh-out-loud surprising – rare in an RPG genre where character and conversation choices are often overfamiliar. More to the point, they simply wouldn’t belong in the more serious universes of Obsidian’s Avowed, or InXile’s Torment: Tides of Numenera. In other words, the absurdity of these settings is helping to keep the genre varied and fresh – and can perhaps even push it forward.

Of course, zaniness is an acquired taste, and there’s a chance these games may overstep into tonal territory that becomes grating rather than gratifying. But the nature of choice-driven RPGs is that their most extreme aspects are optional. Nobody’s forcing you to wield the Spectrum Dance sabre, a musical sword in The Outer Worlds 2 that rewards you with damage bonuses if you can strike enemies on the beat. It’s your choice, and the tone of your experience can be tuned to your tastes.

For now, I’m looking forward to building up a composite of my very own cockney criminal in Clockwork Revolution – with the help of a robot constable who gets suspicious as I pump points into Social skills. “Why do you think they’re so charismatic?” he asks, warily. “Are you sure this wasn’t a jilted lover?”

Jeremy Peel is a freelance journalist and friend to anyone who will look at photos of his dogs. You can follow him on Twitter @jeremy_peel.