Iron Danger – Preview

Daedalic Entertainment is the publisher of Finnish developer Action Squad Studios. They come March 25 with their debut release Iron Danger. We saw it for the first time at GamesCom 2019 and now we have had the opportunity to play some of it quietly. It's not easy to guess from the title, but Iron Danger seems like an isometric action RPG. It's just not at all. What is it then?

Yes, of course, there is some truth to the fact that it is isometric as you know it from many other RPG titles. There are also plenty of RPG elements as part of the game and you also have to find different loot. There is also action in the form of lots of matches. Here, I think, too, the similarity ceases. In traditional games, everything works in real time so you have to be prepared all the time. In Iron Danger, you have the opportunity to rewind time and make your decisions. The system is called Heartbeats where each Heatbeat equals 0.5 seconds of real time. You seem to pause the game and rewind time a little. Then you can change your actions without stress. This allows you to manage matches and tasks without the traditional method of loading a save game and trying again.

We follow the girl Kipura and the gun master Topi. They escape with distress and hardly their village which is under attack by an unknown enemy. Kipura falls into a ravine where, from a friendly spirit, she gains the ability to freeze time and rewind 14 Heartbeats. The only downside is that Kipura now has a luminous crystal in the chest. Topi is a more classic fighter, with his hammer smashing the hostile Northlanders. Same with our two heroes, we must embark on adventures to save their entire world.

The way Heartbeat works is well-functioning. You can scroll back and forth to see what your enemies are doing and select actions that match. For example, if you moving you then your enemies will move differently too. So in doing so, it becomes a matter of finding a combination of actions so you can defeat the enemies. There is also help to pick up in the surroundings where you, for example. can use a tree to trap some of the big enemies. Of course, the strong ones are when you combine Kipura and Topi's different abilities. You can use the mouse for everything or you can use shortcut keys. Once you get started, you'll quickly learn the various shortcut keys. If you need to explore, you can step out of the trance where you use Heartbeats and then act like a regular RPG.

The style is slightly cartoonish. It works very well. I would rather have some unique gameplay with good entertainment than overly polished graphics. It's easy enough if you have money to sacrifice. I would describe it as a series of intense riddles where you have to survive with a limited number of moves while fighting your enemies. You then have to pick your matches. Not everyone needs to be killed. Sometimes the best option might be to sneak past some of the big steam punk inspired giants. But it's all up to you.

The universe itself is inspired by Finnish tales, myths and legends. It is then set in a magical world that meets technique in a mixed form of steampunk. Of course, that's where the distinctive name of the game comes from. There is really a lot of Finnish entertainment such as. that you recover by being a sauna. Yes, there are many who believe that the Finns are without humor. They are definitely not. I think Action Squad Studios has come a long way since Gamecom 2019 in August. It will be a pleasure to play the whole story through when the game lands on Steam on March 25th.