14 DAY TRIAL // Good news: 5 Lives Studios have just offered the first glimpse of their work in progress Satellite Reign, which for connoisseurs reads Syndicate without copyright issues.
The video shows a pre-alpha preview of their work so far, laden with disclaimers regarding the placeholder nature of all the assets shown.
In the latest Dev Diary, the team confessed that the build is so early, they initially didn't even want to show any civilians or combat or whatever else got in the video eventually. The vid was just supposed to demonstrate how the agents' coats react to win from cars zooming by them, but several other elements eventually got in there too, such as civilians, cover usage, x ray camera mode, CCTV cameras and even a couple of enemies and some gunfight footage.
The team stated that the video was recorded at 1920x1080 @ 60 fps on a 2nd Generation i5 PC with a Radeon 5970 using Fraps, and that everything, from the UI, the audio, weapons used and effects is placeholder art that is only meant as a purely functional gauge of what they did so far.
Satellite Reign began its life as an ambitious project on Kickstarter, a real-time squad-based strategy game set in an open-world cyberpunk city led by the creator of Syndicate Wars. The project was a success, achieving its funding goal and some stretch ones at the end of July last year.
Up to now, the team behind Satellite Reign has only released pieces of concept art and prototype stills, this being the first occasion on which the upcoming game is displayed live, even if it is plastered with "placeholder" and "not representative of final product" labels.
The video will surely act as an instant Syndicate trigger for many players, showing the ominous mood of the futuristic urban landscape. The music is very fitting too, especially since the team (with the community's support, of course) has managed to get the original Syndicate series composer, Russell Shaw, on board for the upcoming game.
Pledges for Satellite Reign are still open on PayPal over on the special Pledge section of the game's website, and all received funds will go toward the next stretch goals, backers receiving the same tiered rewards the Kickstarter supporters do.
Those of you who want to learn more about the upcoming re-imagined Syndicate strategy game can check out its Kickstarter page, where abundant information has been made available.