Steel Seed

I'm a big fan of games like Uncharted and Tomb Raider. I love how the genre mixes stealth, climbing, and storytelling into one delicious cocktail that constantly makes you feel a little cooler than you really are. And the new Indiana Jones game in particular has revitalised that old passion. So when I saw Steel Seed, out today, April 22, for PC and PlayStation 5, I was immediately curious. A game in the same genre? Yes, please! It's developed by Storm in a Teacup, an Italian developer with some games on their CV, but nothing I've touched before. But the trailer looked cool, so I've spent my Easter diving into it.

One of my favourite things about stealth/action/adventure games is that they often come with a strong story. Think The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, and now Indiana Jones. Steel Seed attempts to follow suit with a story that, like so many others these days, takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. You play as Zoe, a young woman whose consciousness has been uploaded into a robot body. She wakes up long after the world has gone dark and without much memory of her past. A classic start, but it works. She sets out to find the truth about what happened, and the key to it all seems to be her father, a shadowy CEO type who used to work for a company that wanted to save the planet. Spoiler: That didn't go so well.

Zoe is joined by a little drone named Koby, a miniature R2-D2 that says nothing intelligible but beeps and bops its way lovingly through the adventure. Koby quickly becomes indispensable in both combat and stealth. And then, of course, there's a larger robot friend who obviously knows more than it's saying, but who helps Zoe on her mission. The voice acting and character gallery is passable, when all is said and done. It's not on par with the giants, but it works. The game's gameplay is built around three elements: stealth, platforming, and combat. Let's take them one at a time.

The stealth part works pretty well. You sneak around as Zoe in giant steel structures full of patrolling robots that aren't afraid to beat the crap out of you. It can be a good idea to avoid direct confrontation, especially when the enemies come in droves. However, the game gives you several tools to deal with these situations. Zoe can hide in stealth fields, invisible zones that hide her from enemies. You can sneak up behind a robot and give it a quick beating, or you can use Koby tactically to attract enemies' attention by shooting small projectiles elsewhere. It allows you to plan and execute cunning manoeuvres and it feels really satisfying when you clear a room without being detected.

However, it's not without its problems. Koby can be detected and knocked out, and you have to wait a minute for him to reboot. Not the biggest penalty in the world, but enough to ruin the flow if it happens often. And then there's a bit of classic "jank": it can be a hassle to lean properly against cover, which is especially frustrating when you're trying to be a cunning ninja and your character is instead dancing back and forth behind a crate.

The platforming part, where you jump from beam to beam and climb like a metallic Lara Croft, works well for the most part. You get the sense of heights and dangerous environments, but as in many games, the camera can be a pain. Some jumps feel a little unsafe, and I even fell into the abyss a few times while shouting swear words at the screen. It's not devastating though, and the checkpoints are thankfully fair.

The combat system is... well, it exists. You have two attacks: one quick and one heavy. The fast one tickles the enemies and the heavy one feels like it takes forever to swing. It all works best with a controller, my keyboard felt a little clunky during the punch exchanges. You can roll around attacks, but there's no real parrying, which makes combat feel somewhat simple. It's clear that stealth is meant to be the main way to play and that the battles are mostly there as a backup if (or when) the plan fails.

But one thing the game really does well is its skill tree. You unlock new abilities not by finding skill points in a chest, but by performing certain actions. For example, if you make three perfect dodges in a row, you can get a new skill that improves that. It gives a sense of progression that is directly linked to how you play. A bit like Starfield, and it's definitely an approach I hope more games copy.

Presentation-wise, Steel Seed isn't exactly ground-breaking, but it's pretty enough and runs smoothly at a stable 60fps. The world, a giant metal ball you move through, is both claustrophobic and impressively large. It's quite a feat to make a place feel both cramped and infinite. The colour palette leans towards dark and industrial, so the variety could be a little better and I missed some fresh colours and new surroundings after hours of brown, rusty corridors. But there's atmosphere, and it works.

There are also classic sequences where you run from giant robots that destroy the environment behind you. One wrong jump and you're dead, but luckily the game is good with checkpoints. You don't have to go through ten minutes of repetition to try again, and I really appreciate that.

So, what's the conclusion? Steel Seed is an exciting attempt to take on the big boys in the stealth-action genre. It doesn't quite reach the level of Uncharted or The Last of Us, but it doesn't need to. It's charming, fun, and at times quite cool, and while there's a bit of technical jank and a few rusty screws in combat and controls, the good parts outweigh the bad to make it all worthwhile. I hope the developers are allowed to build on this universe, because with a little more money and a little more polish, the next game in the series could be something really special.