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| Youtube:: Varsapura |
Flashspoter - HoYoverse, a Chinese global game development company that has been in the limelight with major titles like Genshin Impact, Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero. The company is now broadening its game portfolio with the announcement of Varsapura, an open-world game in the works with Unreal Engine 5. The announcement adds to a long list of ongoing HoYoverse projects, having previously introduced the cozy Petit Planet game as well as an unpublished fantasy MMO project in detail. Varsapura also became one of the company's most ambitious titles after a successful streak that made HoYoverse one of the Giants of the global gacha industry.
Varsapura is positioned as an open-world action game on the theme of science-fiction and psychic phenomena. In early documentation published through official channels, HoYoverse described the world setting of Varsapura as a region plagued by parapsychological disorders. This phenomenon can appear as a distortion of reality, a manifestation of human consciousness, to a threat called Mindrot that is able to infect or consume objects and living things. The way the issue is handled here makes it stand out from the previous titles of HoYoverse which were more or less of the fantasy or futuristic urban genre.
The central figure among the characters in the plot is an imaginary entity known as SEAL (Shadow Emergency Alliance). SEAL is a covert unit that handles parapsychological anomalies, and the users embody a new agent who is commissioned with the investigation and response to threats. HoYoverse is a mix of the present architectural style, misty cityscapes, and in-between spaces that are not bound by the laws of regular physics. Some of the visuals in the gameplay demo show office buildings, endless hallways, to urban areas inspired by Singapore.
The approximately 31-minute gameplay Demo shows a number of mechanical aspects. Varsapura features three-character action combat, a format that has become the hallmark of the HoYoverse. Each character looks to have regular attacks,skills, ultimate, and special abilities that can be activated when the character changes. Several implementations such as combo attacks, avoidance of enemy attacks, and the area effect system were re-applied, similar to the formula found in Zenless Zone Zero and Genshin Impact.
The main character is depicted as a novice agent with the ability to fight using an umbrella that can transform into a spectral weapon. Other actions such as attacks from behind the enemy, hovering to attack in the air, to interaction with the environment are also shown. Other characters that appear include a SEAL administration officer who uses a dossier of documents as a weapon, as well as one character armed with a large flail capable of manipulating gravity.
Beyond combat, the demo gameplay features open-world exploration using small, free-to-drive vehicles. The environment shows destructive objects, realistically executed light reflections, as well as vertically passable areas of the city. The high jump mechanic also gives an indication of the presence of platforming elements in the exploration. Despite being open-world, the demo shows a more focused approach than the vast world design of Genshin.
HoYoverse also confirmed that all footage in the presentation was run using a device with an RTX 4090 GPU, thus showing visual conditions that do not necessarily reflect performance for other release platforms. To date, the company has not confirmed the destination platform or release schedule. However, active recruitment for Shanghai, Singapore and Los Angeles offices indicates that Varsapura is still in an active development phase and on a global scale.
HoYoverse's approach to the project looks serious, especially with the use of Unreal Engine 5 which offers significant visual improvements over their internal engine. Besides that, the main character's look is said to be able to vary depending on each player's aesthetic choice, which is called the Parapsychological effect in the narrative, according to the official description. HoYoverse didn't explain the working of this method in the last version.
With a lack of information regarding monetization models, beta schedules, or service structure, Varsapura is currently still at an early introduction stage. However, the paranormal theme, realistic world design and action formulation typical of the HoYoverse made it one of the company's largest projects in recent years.
Source PCGamer, GamesRadar, Gematsu
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