On September 1st, Songbringer launches on Xbox One, PC, Mac, and Linux. On September 5th, it launches on PS4. But before that happens, one-man development studio Wizard Fu has released the game’s official launch trailer.
For those that don’t know: Songbringer — as described by Wizard Fu — is sci-fi love letter to old-school action RPGs, which is how it picked up its “Zelda-like” tagline.
The game is set in the Milky Way during 13,000 B.C. You play as Rog Epimetheos: a shirtless and carefree spacefaring “dude” with a propensity for partying and making music as he cruises the galaxy with his skybot Jib aboard his ship Songbringer, searching for verdant planets absent the presence of galactic police.
But during a routine mission, Roq finds the nanosword hidden in a cave on Ekzera, and unwittingly awakens an ancient evil.
As for your companion Jib, he began his existence as a human boy on the skycity planet Yuerder. Growing up he took an interest in programming artificial intelligence, which he eventually made a career out of it. On his deathbed, he illegally transferred his consciousness into a skybot.
Jib scans bodies of fallen foes for Roq, sometimes uncovering valuable loot. He can also stun foes as well. Notably, he is controllable by a second-player via local co-op, otherwise is AI controlled.
Songbringer notably features a unique procedurally generation system where you choose a 6-letter “world seed” when beginning a quest. This seed is used to be procedurally generate the planet, overworld, secrets, and dungeons. Meanwhile, if you enter the same world seed, you get the same world, no matter what platform you’re on. Thus your lore and competition can be shared with others.
The generated overworld is described as open and non-linear, and can be played in whatever order or style you want. Of the nine dungeons Roq and Jib can uncover in each world: some are thematic, containing puzzles and items integral to competing the world; some are secret, hidden side quests in which you can earn abilities; and some are tough, full of difficult bosses and foes.
Exploring these worlds, there is much that can’t be seen normally. To unveil these secrets, you need to eat cacti that grant Roq special psychedelic powers.
Songbringer notably features leaderboards, a no XP progression system, hundreds of unique items and power-ups, item crafting, and a rogue-like inspired permadeath mode.
Below, you can check out the new, aforementioned trailer: