The Fall Part 2: Unbound Preview
The Fall Part 2: Unbound has just been announced as a Nintendo Switch title. It’s a unique side-scrolling adventure game that has you playing as a female artificial intelligence (who knew they would be gender-specific?) named ARID. Her program has been ejected onto a vast global network and in a desperate attempt to save herself from oblivion, she downloads her consciousness into various robots. Each one has its own personality and gameplay styles.
The original game on PC had you playing the same A.I., but you were in charge of protecting an unconscious human pilot. The game played a little bit like Metroid and a little bit like a point-and-click adventure game, and received some high praise from those that played it.
This time around the gameplay will be expanded thanks to multiple different playable characters. The developers are really taking some extra time to create a compelling story that integrates into the action. In other words, they want to make sure that when you go somewhere or do something in the game it makes sense in the story as well. Puzzle solving returns and will challenge players to think outside the box.
Improvements in the sequel abound with the new controls. The team is hoping to make combat more fun and appealing to a larger group of players. They are sprinkling in more Metroidvania type gameplay elements into the game to enhance the experience. The worlds will be littered with strange and creepy things for you to discover and ponder. The developers state:
Our desire to make a more robust experience has to be rooted in gameplay first and foremost. This time around, our puzzles have become more rich and complex (if I do say so myself). At the outset of our story, Arid is injected with a dark and invasive process which threatens her existence. In a panic, she projects herself onto the global network, where she invades several robots in a desperate attempt for help. Fans of The Fall will know that working with the limits of others isn’t exactly Arid’s strong suit however, and players will be given a wide range of strange challenges that involve helping Arid get what she wants while working within the (sometimes neurotic) limitations of the robots she inhabits. As the story progresses, Arid will be able to take perceptual mechanics from one robot into another. Players will solve puzzles by perceiving the environment from different perspectives and comparing the information they find in creative ways… served up with a helping of The Fall’s signature dark humour.
The Fall 2 definitely sounds like it’s shaping up to be a very unique experience. If the team can pull it off, it could be a fantastic game for the Nintendo Switch. We’ll be keeping our eyes on this one as it approaches its scheduled late-summer release.
Craig has been covering the video game industry since 1995. His work has been published across a wide spectrum of media sites. He’s currently the Editor-In-Chief of Nintendo Times and contributes to Gaming Age.
