Explore and survive – Steel Defier now available

Indie publisher Ratalaika Games, in partnership with Brazil Indie developer, Viridino Studios, announced Steel Defier, a specially created stand alone title – a release spanning multiple platform – PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch is out now!

Steel Defier is primarily focused on fast-paced gameplay, and the overall backdrop story is that you play as the sole survivor of a disastrous malfunction in the defence system of a giant spaceship that works as a prison for all sorts of lawbreakers. It appears everyone has been killed aboard, except you!

The main objective is to locate the landing site, where the player can steal a smaller spaceship and escape from prison. However, the big spaceship is quite a maze with many rooms and a fully operational defence system that’s constantly hunting down the player with different traps, so it’s essential for the player to locate suit upgrades and increase survivability rate.

The spaceship has exactly 40 rooms and each one of them has a different combination of traps. In some rooms the traps are faster or slower, in other rooms there might be a power outage that limits the player’s field of view, etc. In very special cases, the player might stumble upon a suit upgrade that will grant it a completely new and unique skill, like the ability of slowing down time for a short amount of time. In theory the suit upgrades are optional, but searching for and collecting them will make the player’s journey much easier. Exploring, finding, searching, seeking out is a pleasing experience as you progress through the challenging environment!

Every single room has a different combination of traps, with different speed multipliers and even environmental conditions, like the power outage that limits the player’s field of view and produces a quite scary alarm sound.

Each trap moves at a different speed, covers a different amount of walkable area and sometimes even follows the player or explodes after a short delay. To counter them, the player is advised to collect as many suit upgrades as possible, like the ability to slow down time, dash through traps and even double jump.

Every item in the game will grant a different ability to the player, allowing them to enhance their dodging capabilities in unique ways. Some suit upgrades even have “secret” usages, for example: the dash ability is mainly used to traverse the environment faster, but you can also use it to go through traps without being harmed.

The player isn’t able to directly fight the spaceship’s defence system, as he’s not equipped with a gun. However, the game is still packed with action, since the player will always be surrounded by increasingly more aggressive traps. Also, with every suit upgrade the player will become more powerful and capable of overcoming any challenge.

Steel Defier’s difficulty increases as the player gets further from their prison cell, with more and more traps showing up after each visited room. With clever designing of the spaceship exploring never becomes boring or a linear path but a rewarding and satisfying experience.

Viridino Studios,”We divided the spaceship’s interior into three interconnected lanes, allowing the player to explore in different ways or completely skipping rooms in case they’re performing a speedrun.”

A charming and functional presentation with a combination of low poly models and pixel art textures to achieve the final look makes seeing, finding and playing the game, more intuitive and easier to spot what you are looking for, plus giving a more open and non cluttered environment an important consideration adopted by the developer! Music is also delightfully managed with an “alien” feel to match the spaceship and environment