New gameplay for ECHO has been released and it shows us just how the AI of ECHO will learn our own moves to hunt us down
Earlier this month were learned that ECHO was finally getting a release date on September 19th. Almost a year after it was first brought up and shown off to the world by developer Ultra Ultra. We’ve heard a lot about the gameplay and how it will learn based on your own actions, and have seen a little of it over time, but now we get to see a full breakdown and just how crazy the gameplay could be. Yes, we have some new gameplay for ECHO from its most recent build so it looks like this is about what we can expect on the Xbox One, PS4, and PC when the release date finally comes around. So very exciting to be your own enemy here.
In this new gameplay for ECHO, we get to see what looks to be an earlier stage of the game. En, the protagonist, has entered the palace and needs to find two keys to move along to the next objective. This is a Sci-Fi game so you can expect digital markers on the AR HUD, but she is also surrounded by a different type of HUD that indicates where the ‘ECHOes’ in the game space are currently and if they have spotted you just yet. That is at least if you are going at it all in a stealth manner as the run-and-gun style is an option, but you need to remember that everything you do in the light is being recorded for future use against you. As you will see, the more that the player shoots and kills, the more aggressive the enemies are with the same action.
ECHO — Gameplay
Introducing En, a callow space traveler who, after a century in stasis, arrives at her destination: A Palace born of legend, a marvel of an ancient civilization eons gone, still awaiting its first human occupants. Out here, using forgotten technology, En hopes to bring back a life that should not have been lost…
A character-driven story of introspection and discovery, ECHO quickly develops into something much more unsettling. Stepping into the shoes of En, it becomes clear that The Palace itself studies everything you are, everything that you do; in order to use it against you.
The Palace creates ‘Echoes’, with the sole purpose of destroying you. The game will shift and change as you do, constantly evolving its Echoes based your actions – If you sneak, they will get stealthier. If you shoot, they will start to shoot back.
It does sound like the enemies here in ECHO do get a full reset when the Palace “updates” their code. While it is hard to see here in the gameplay, the devs from Ultra Ultra do make it sound like if they stopped shooting everyone and went to a stealth path that the enemies would revert back to it. Although it is never seen here as most of the time the player is spotted it turns into a hug shootout and less of a brawl. Not to mention that they claim multiple times that we can take down the enemies in ECHO with one-hit kills and they can in turn do the same, but even the on-hit kills they should be doing only seem to do damage and not end the play. Maybe it is all through stealth and not frontal assault that this can happen.
Do you have any new thoughts on ECHO now that you’ve seen it in action and had things explained a bit more? Do you think that the enemies are ‘refreshed’ with each update or are their just too many conflicting actions to see them truly replay out what we just did? Do you think that the one-hit kills are only linked to the stealth option for the enemies or did we just not see them get lucky enough to pull one of here? Let us all know down in the comments and then discuss it further. Hopefully we will see more for ECHO in the coming days and weeks. If we do, we will have the new information and visuals up on the site for you. Don’t miss out on a single thing though.