We've commented on soon to launch souls-like Steelrising on a few occasions as a possibly interesting retrofuturistic steam-punk alternate history France action roleplaying game. Quite the mouthful.

After the similar Lies of P offered its first and incredibly impressive look at gameplay at Gamescom last month where it won three awards, we suggested that Steelrising may have unfortunately for its developers been overshadowed.

Presently allowing those who have pre-ordered the game access to its first few areas, there's now a growing body of Steelrising gameplay footage online and it may have been keeping some unexpected and sweet surprises under its frilly French frocks.

Where it had failed to really grab us was in the techno-wizardry department.

Robots are very sci-fi and some of the weapons look fabulous but we wanted to see cool gadgetry.

Does it have it? And enough of it?

That's still unclear but there is a lot more to it than had been shown in previous gameplay.

What's New?

Using a similar character development system to other souls-likes, there are starting classes which begin with certain equipment and skill levels but whatever choice you make you can advance any skill and potentially use any weapon.

Of note, one of these classes is called Alchemist and their skills are Alchemy and Engineering.

Those two skills boost condition (fire, frost and electricity) damage and defence.

Fire applies a damage over time effect, frost freezes and electricity applies a debuff which hits enemies with a certain amount of extra damage every time they're hit.

A fully charged pistol attack, which takes longer to perform and also consumes two ammunition instead of one, can instantly apply one of those conditions.

Alternatively melee attacks will build up a condition metre on each enemy and apply the condition when full.

At these low levels the melee condition build up was completely useless except for bosses.

Regular enemies would die long before triggering it.

But the charged pistol attack could be used to excellent effect on many opponents, then followed up with melee attacks.

Ammunition isn't ultra scarce but the amount of damage inflicted per bullet is relatively small and purely ranged combat doesn't appear to be viable.

Some melee weapons have longer reach but none are what you'd call long range.

Additionally there are consumed on use grenades and "tools" whose only confirmed use so far is accessing certain areas.

For example there are walls which the game tells you can be broken if you have the right tool - which you don't have in the early levels.

Could such tools also be useful in combat?

Is there more to Alchemy and Engineering than just boosting condition damage, defence and loot gain?

Like, creating alchemical and engineering products.

That's what we'd like to know.

Would we throw down money at this point for it?

No, we're still not convinced but will look in on it again post-launch.

We'd rather miss out on its cosmetic pre-order bonuses than fritter away money on gameplay features important for our tastes which this title may or may not boast.

Steelrising launches on PC, Xbox and PlayStation on September 8.

[ Main Image: Steelrising. Credit: Nacon via Steam. ]