Steelrising - Discus Chain

Steelrising is an action-RPG from Spiders that borrows heavily from the Souls formula and drops it into one of the most underused historical settings in games: revolutionary Paris, except the revolution never happened because Louis XVI unleashed a nightmare army of clockwork automata on the streets. You play as Aegis, a mechanical dancer-turned-weapon built by a brilliant engineer, sent to unravel the conspiracy behind the King's iron grip on the city. On paper, that is an incredible pitch. In practice, the game is a mixed bag that swings between genuinely interesting and frustratingly half-baked. The combat sits at the center of everything, and it works well enough to keep you engaged for most of the runtime. Aegis has four class archetypes at the start - Bodyguard, Soldier, Alchemist, and Dancer - each shaped around different weapon types and stat builds. The Dancer leans into fast, elemental attacks; the Soldier tanks through everything with heavy weapons. There is a freeze mechanic tied to the cold damage system that feels satisfying to exploit, locking enemies in place long enough to chain a follow-up. Parrying and dodging are both viable, which is rare in this genre - most games punish you for ignoring one. Boss designs are memorable in their visual spectacle even if the actual fight patterns rarely surprise you past the midpoint. The worldbuilding is where Steelrising earns genuine affection. Paris is rendered with real architectural care, and the alternate history premise lets the writing explore class, labor, and power through the lens of literal mechanical oppression. The NPCs you meet - Marie-Josephe, the Marquis de Condorcet, others scattered across districts - carry enough personality to make their questlines worth finishing. Aegis herself is quietly compelling, and the mystery of her own origins threads through the main story with enough restraint that it does not overstay its welcome. If you came here for lore and atmosphere, the game delivers more than its review score suggests. The problems are real though. Performance on PC at launch was rough, and even post-patch the frame pacing can stutter in open areas. Enemy variety runs thin by the third district - you will fight the same automaton archetypes recycled across five zones with minor cosmetic differences, and it starts to feel like padding. The upgrade and crafting system is functional but rarely exciting; most of your time is spent hoarding resources toward a single weapon path rather than experimenting. Save points (called Vestal statues) are spaced inconsistently, which crosses the line from challenging to annoying in a couple of the longer level corridors. The RPG depth is present but thin compared to what the genre has conditioned us to expect. Steelrising sits in a specific tier of games I think of as "genuinely worth your time if you know what you are signing up for." It is not competing with Elden Ring for mechanical depth, and it is not competing with Disco Elysium for narrative density. It is a mid-budget Souls-adjacent game with an excellent setting, decent combat, and writing that punches slightly above its weight. If the alternate-history Paris concept speaks to you and you can forgive some repetition and rough edges, there is a solid 20-30 hour experience here. If you need tight enemy variety and build experimentation past hour 15, you will hit the ceiling.

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