Chorus is an exhilarating space combat shooter with a pace all its own

Ever since Chorus first stepped out of hyperspace during Microsoft’s Xbox Series X showcase last year, Fishlabs’ enigmatic space shooter has been a difficult thing to pin down. The first trailer gave us a taste of its high-speed fights and third-person battles, but its deep and ominous storytelling, allusions to a mysterious cosmic power, and that final image of an aspirated planet. in a black hole almost looked like this. bordering on horror territory rather than just science fiction. Having now played Chorus for about an hour or so, I can safely say that this is a purebred space combat shooter, following the same adrenaline-filled vein as EVE: Valkyrie and Star Wars Squadrons.

Forsaken, the sentient ship you control in Chorus that’s piloted by rebellious cultist Nara, is probably an equally slippery thing to nail in the eyes of your enemies. Thanks to one of the special powers of Rite of Nara, which is granted to him by the aforementioned cosmic power that you will hunt down during the game, Forsaken is able to move and teleport right behind enemy ships for brutal kills and riddled with bullets. This is extremely satisfying and can also allow for some daring last minute breakouts of the incoming reticles. But you’ll need more than the crafty powers of Rite of Nara to survive Chorus’ ruthless aerial battles. Forsaken has been on fire more times than I want to admit in my working hour, but I can’t wait to get back to it when it finally launches on Steam and the Epic Games Store on December 3 later this year.

The Rite Of The Hunt, as it’s called in the game, isn’t just for shooting the old switcheroo at your enemies. It also allows Forsaken to pass through blue barrier fields, giving Nara the chance to slip inside the hull of an enemy cultist ship while I get my hands on it to detonate crippling psychic totems that prevent his allies to escape. Forsaken’s laser might be a helping hand in taking down the shields hiding the individual ships flying outside, but these barriers will stand up to nothing, whether it’s a barrage of gunship missiles. of Forsaken or a shower of gatling balls. Instead, you’ll need to deploy the powers of Rite of Nara to win the day here, giving us a first look at some of the puzzle-themed Chorus objectives that will come much later in the main campaign.

While they weren’t present in my hands on the demo, Nara will have to gain these special Rite powers by navigating the narrow, winding corridors of ancient temples. Think of Rey piloting the Millennium Falcon through the ruins of that Star Destroyer in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and you’re halfway there. Only these temples aren’t full of crumbling wrecks about to fall on your head. An extended presentation from the developer revealed that these cold maze-like ruins are carved out of sharp, angular rocks, and their liberal use of 90-degree turns makes it seem like they’ll really test your prowess as a that pilot.

Although he flies in such close quarters, the power of Nara’s Rite Of The Hunt can be used here as a vital puzzle tool, allowing him to instantly jump back to hit hidden switches, and there were also clues to crumbling walls that you might walk through to reveal alternate routes. Fishlabs has stated that you’ll be able to revisit these temples and unlock new areas with future powers you acquire, although everything at the end of these Metroidvania-tinged offshoots remains to be seen.

These can be “memories”, whispered messages from the past that reveal little stories about the world of Chorus and its history. Fishlabs has stated that these messages will be hidden throughout the slice of the galaxy you explore in Chorus, and you can track them down by following a voice track you hear on the Forsaken Communication Channel. Alternatively, these can be hidden caches, containing new weapons and modifications for your ship that you can equip and customize once you return to a hangar.

The former fall into one of three categories. When you begin Nara’s journey, your only line of attack is your trusty Gatling Pistol, but eventually you’ll add the aforementioned laser blaster and missile launcher to Forsaken’s tool set, which is mapped to the D -pad of your controller (which is the way to play). The modifications, meanwhile, are much more, including things like ignition boosters, heat sinks, laser amplifiers, gyro stabilizers, crystal discharges, thermal conductors, tracking algorithms and much more. more to help improve Forsaken’s stats even further.

While it doesn’t seem like you can go so far as to turn Forsaken into completely different types of ships with these extensive modifications, careful planning and careful equipment choices are likely to always play a key role in its moment. aerial combat. Chorus is tough and his enemy AI is no joke. They’ll chase you and seek you out with relentless determination, and you’ll have to use all of Nara and Forsaken’s tricks to be successful, whether it’s pressing your left analog stick to perform a simple evasive maneuver, within you. putting out of danger with the left trigger. , drifting with the left shoulder button to carve out impossible turns, or pulling out the old Rite Of The Hunt bait and passing by pressing the B button.

Sometimes it can seem like your left hand has almost too much to do, as you’ll also need to switch weapons frequently on the D-pad to effectively take down your enemies, in addition to leading (and dodging) with the left controller. . In a particularly heated fight that saw Nara and a group of rebels invade a star-spangled city to retrieve a travel gate, the main objective was to take down six glowing energy stations to prevent a defense node from activating and dying. ‘wiping out the rest of my group, and the finger gymnastics involved sometimes got a little hairy in places.

The energy stations were easy enough to destroy with Forsaken’s Gatling gun, as were the swarms of nimble Crow small ships buzzing in packs behind me. However, these crows were also accompanied by a handful of mighty crows, combat ships with thicker hulls and stronger shields. Persistent gatling is still enough to take down these small numbers of metal birds, but well-placed laser fire will open and deactivate these shields much faster. Vultures, on the other hand, are even greater threats. These armored gunships make fun of your gatling machine gun, but their slower speed makes for great missile training once you open their shields.

Much like Doom, Chorus is a game that thrives on constant movement. Slow down or stay in one spot for too long trying to line up a shot and you’ll be ripped to shreds in no time. Yes, you may have to run multiple runs through an enemy turret or weapon cache trying to find your way around, but you’ll come out with a lot more health than if you spent an extra few seconds strafing a few inches towards the right to get it the first time.

Indeed, apart from invading Star City, one of my favorite missions in the demo was to take down a hidden base nestled around an asteroid field, as it taught me the importance of play fast and loose pretty quickly. In addition to shooting down individual ships, I also had to destroy other glowing energy stations to disable the base’s launch pads (so they couldn’t launch even more ships), while still being under turret fire and maneuvering through tight spaces. in the rock. Sure, the set of “Lighted Power Boxes” may have been used twice in a row pretty quickly during my hour-long demo, but attaching them to the launch pads here still helped keep it going. a sense of variety in what I did. However, if Fishlabs will be able to maintain that over the course of Chorus’ 10-13 hour campaign, we’ll have to wait and see.

Still, I enjoyed my time with Chorus, even though I was broken in several times. Forsaken is a sleek and cunning little machine that feels great under the thumbs, and the way you can hold onto enemy tails with Nara’s Rite Of The Hunt power can really help you out of some sticky situations. Fights are won through sweat and gritted teeth in Chorus, which I haven’t felt from a space combat shooter in quite some time. It’s exhilarating, but I’m also intrigued by the overall story of Chorus. As Nara’s transition from cultist to rebellious freedom fighter after a botched military operation seems to have come straight out of the Final Fantasy IV playbook, I can’t wait to see how her powers evolve as the game progresses. and how they’ll sit next to the arsenal provided by Forsaken. Fishlabs said that Nara might not even need to use any guns once she reaches the peak of her rite powers, and I’m delighted to see how that affects the pace of her. battles. Fortunately, we only have to wait a few months to find out, as Chorus is expected to launch on December 3, 2021.