Frozen Synapse and its sporty spinoff Frozen Cortex have always had an air of cyberpunk, taking place in a glowing geometrical cyberspace-style world. In the long-awaited sequel Frozen Synapse 2, developer Mode 7 Games turns it into a true open world game where factions fight it out for control of a fully realized city. The developer compares it to XCOM: Apocalypse, where ”the player’s initial role is to investigate a series of incursions by a powerful force.”
Every new game has a unique city procedurally built from scratch, and all of them are on the scale of an actual city, including a skyscraper-filled downtown. If that weren’t enough, every building interior can be breached and explored. ”Everything in the game is ‘on the map’, from money and supplies to VIP’s, hostages and even the player’s own in-game avatar. If a faction is transporting their ill-gotten gains back from a raid, the player can set up an ambush and try to snaffle the bounty themselves. If the player’s base is raided and they are killed, the game will end,” explains the developer.
Players can do anything they like, either doing missions or just free-form playing. Just as players own their own turf and try to expand it, so do the other AI factions. Not everything need devolve into combat, however, as players will find themselves making and breaking treaties with those factions. According to Mode 7 Games, the city itself is analogous to Chiron from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri: a living system that will react to a player’s actions.
The meat and potatoes of Frozen Synapse 2 is combat, of course, and in this game, it’s detailed and complex. For example, players employ stealth when trying to lay claim to a building. However, if a security guard spots them, the building goes on high alert and makes taking it more difficult.
Finally, Frozen Synapse 2 supports multiplayer, and Mode 7 Games teased some of what to expect, such as ”a system we’re calling ‘Advanced Tactics’,” an advanced option for ”high-level players and will allow the creation of elaborate conditional plans.” The studio also teased, ”If the game performs well in Early Access, we will look into adding requested features such as 3v3 and 4v4 multiplayer as well as single player co-op modes.”
Frozen Synapse 2 will be entering beta soon, and is expected to see its launch sometime before the end of 2016.
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