Tactical RPG Shadow of the Road opens with a disclaimer: "This is not the Nippon you know." Later, I cut down a Flamethrower Ninja with locks of cursed hair before realizing he was the only thing standing between my dying ronin and the fleshy knot of eyeballs killing friend and foe alike. No, this is not the Nippon I know.
Still, there are kernels of truth to Shadow of the Road's setting. The game takes place in 1868 – when Japan returned to Imperial rule in the real world – but here, history has taken a different course. The premise of tracing steampunk fiction back to reality drew me to Shadow of the Road, and Dante Pragier, who handles the narrative at developer Another Angle Games, tells me that premise has remained at the game's core since inception.
"The setting, genre, and style of Shadow of the Road have changed a lot through iteration over the years, but that idea of 'worlds colliding' never did," says Pragier, whose work began with hefty research to ensure the game's fantasy sprung from an authentic historical base. "We see that collision in multiple ways. Tradition vs progress, magic vs technology, east vs west... Ultimately, if we're creating these magical or supernatural creatures, what can stand against them? Thinking about the best late 19th century technology had to offer, and then dialing that to 11, became a good way to give this sense of worlds colliding."
"We ended up with a sort of 'what if...' or 'alternative history' approach," Pragier continues. "This allowed us to make the setting our own, but it also gave us some ground rules for our own logical consistency. So, we ask questions like, 'What if this particular battle took place, but one side was given a supply of powerful weapons beforehand. How would that change the war?'"
Steampunk restoration
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The answer is 'lots', if Emperor Mutsuhito's robot scorpions and exo-suited warriors are anything to go by. The setting is nothing if not unique, and separates Shadow of the Road from the recent spate of hits set in feudal Japan – namely Ghost of Yotei and Assassin's Creed Shadows.
"As a team we were recently discussing our influences and inspirations, and it seems like every one of us ended up with different lists of games, films, anime, manga, all sorts. Some of the more common inspirations include classic TRPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics and X-COM, the films of Kurosawa – Yōjinbō, Sanjuro, Seven Samurai – and the amazing work recent games have done with similar settings – Ghosts of Tsushima, Shadow Tactics," says Pragier, who notes that Final Fantasy 13 and "the richness of Shinto, of this particular moment in time" were also guiding lights.
The steampunk setting lends itself well to Shadow of the Road's turn-based combat, which I check out in a free demo. My party of four includes a red-eyed archer, mysterious sorceress, a bodyguard whose defining trait is Being Massive, and a traditionalist ronin swordsman. Each plays to their own strengths, with unique abilities ranging from weaponized hair to shouts that bring allies' turns forward, and Pragier says that thematic diversity lends itself well to unit diversity across the broader game.
"Another thing that impresses me, as I watch over the shoulders of our combat/encounter designers, is the degree to which every encounter is created bespoke," Pragier says. "It's not 'randomized' or designed to grind against endlessly. It feels like every foe you fight is there for a reason, and the experience has been put together with thought. I love that hand-crafted feel."
I'm a sucker for turn-based combat – "Me too!" says Pragier – and that goes double when it's tucked into an isometric RPG. The genre is in the midst of a major resurgence, with the likes of Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, and Wasteland's reboot helping to reintroduce the isometric format to new audiences. Pragier is a big fan of the isometric medium, and when explaining what makes it a good fit here, points to the reasons he adores the medium in the first place.
"There are two things I love about isometric [games]. One, I guess, is more about connotation, but it has that 'classic' sense of RPG storytelling to it, like the grand adventures of Infinity Engine games. Some of my all-time favorites are isometric RPGs, so I'm very glad for the renewed interest," says Pragier. "Secondly, I think the perspective more easily involves the world around us as we potter through it. Even though the camera is further back, our characters seem more connected to the environment, if that makes sense, and (hopefully) allows the player to appreciate the setting most clearly. I'm so enamored with the work that our level designers do to bring scenes of nature and war, and mythology to life. I suppose isometric just seems like the best way to bask in their work!"
Owlcat Games, Shadow of the Road's publisher, also happens to be one of the best developers in the field, having created Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader and now working on its promising follow-up Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy. "As a brilliant studio themselves, they've surmounted many of the challenges we face, and having their support readily available has allowed us to create work that we're most proud of," says Pragier.
While Shadow of the Road's release date is yet to be confirmed, the demo packs enough of the game's style and tight turn-based combat to keep me on the hook. It's an ambitious title – especially as the studio's debut game. "We're nothing but ambitious," says Pragier. "We're a small team with a lot of big ideas, which means we're constantly having to navigate our scope very carefully – including some tough decisions about what is and isn't achievable for us."
"Everything feels ambitious," they add. "Whether the decision to work with a Japanese VA, the breadth of companions and skills designed, the number of enemies and bosses, the narrative branches... Many aspects of our game are traditionally reserved for a much larger studio. I'm immensely proud of the work my colleagues are doing – all dozen-odd of them. I think the underdog spirit has served us well."
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