Step right into Circus Electrique, Zen Studios’ gripping circus role-playing game that launches on September 6 – PlayStation.
Around the end of 2019, a small group of creative people in Zen Studios came up with an idea for the rest of us: “Let’s make an RPG set in the steampunk version of London, where all your playable heroes are circus performers.” Pretty much everyone who read the introduction – myself included – reacted the way I hope you do when hearing such a premise: “What a crazy idea… I love it!” With just a few weeks until Circus Electrique’s September 6 release, allow me to reflect on how it all turned out — and the ways the game is different from other RPGs…
Create a game that we ourselves want to play
The idea for a project first called “Circus Scandal” came about when team members refreshed other Zen Studios RPGs like the first-person dungeon crawler Operencia: The Stolen Sun, tactical roguelite Dread Nautical and mishmash CastleStorm II genre 4X all expressed our desire to bring another RPG to life. At Zen, it’s important that we make the kinds of games we want to play… and that’s been the case in recent years, a relatively new subgroup of RPGs in particular that many people in we’re enamored, most typically Darkest Dungeon. And in the midst of that darkness, a light bulb went out: “We love this kind of game. Let’s make our own. “
Steampunk offers a unique aesthetic
But what exactly is the best way to make a game like Darkest Dungeon “our own”? We soon realized, the first step was to present a unique aesthetic. High fantasy and all, but what if we took everything somewhere else? What if we don’t even have any knights or magicians or orcs or elves or dragons? (Not even a single dungeon, poorly lit or otherwise!) What if we… go steampunk?
That was the idea of designer Andras “Babar” Klujber, to which most of us would say, “Steampunk is cool! We love steaks! Why not have more exciting games? Let’s change that.” Before we knew it, we did our own research into the era… which led to finding amazing circus posters like these…
So that makes us think… circus performers have their own unique special abilities, don’t they? What if they used them to fight? What if these circus performers had saved a late Victorian London Steampunk from insane commoners? What if the electrical innovations of the day from the likes of Tesla, Edison and Westinghouse were actually improved (pun intended entirely)? Not many games have such a premise.
Driven by the story
Now we’ve got our basic idea — an engaging RPG where you fight like circus performers against everyday people who have “faded out”. But how do we make that sense? That’s where one of our key differentiators comes in: a greater focus on story. Something more narrative—maybe even more influenced by JRPGs.
Simply put, the world of Circus Electrique was exactly like ours until 1873, when a great innovation revolutionized electricity, sending the flow of time in a more direction. Our story takes place 26 years later, after a horrific event known as Maddening has led everyday people to attack innocent people, seemingly out of their will. Mysteriously immune to Maddening, Circus Electrique performers join our protagonist Amelia on a quest to find out how all this happened and how to stop it. .
Accessibility difficulty and atypical RPG heroes
Circus Electrique’s uniqueness goes beyond aesthetics and story. For one thing, we know that a lot of players find that this particular RPG genre is being overly punitive. While not without its challenges, Circus Electrique aims to be a game that you not only want to complete… but actually will! It’s easier for us… but not so easy.
It’s also worth mentioning that these are not your typical RPG heroes. Character classes like Strongman, Knife Thrower, Cannonballer, and even Robot Bear — 15 all together — are a welcome change of pace from the mock-focused archetypes. think more.
Circus planning
And finally, since everyone knew the show had to go on, there was the “boss-like” aspect of Circus Electrique — planning a circus. This takes the form of a complex, almost puzzle-solving gaming experience, where curating a list of the best characters based on their likes and dislikes is directly related to the show’s success. It’s the kind of thing that can take you a minute or an hour, depending on how much you want to think about it.
On behalf of the team, we couldn’t be more excited to present our unique vision to you soon. Please let us know what you think when Circus Electrique releases the PlayStation of your choice on September 6.
