Synduality trailer shows off dystopian world, large mech fights

An announcement trailer for Bandai Namco’s new project Synduality debuted Tuesday, at Sony’s State of Play September presentation. The third-person sci fi shooter game will be released in 2023.

In the game, you and an AI mech named Magus explore a dystopian landscape in the year 2222. A catastrophic rain event known as Tears of the New Moon nearly eradicated the human race — survivors fled to the underground city of Amasia. To survive, the player character known as a “Drifter” must sell AO Crystals, which can only be harvested from the polluted outside world. To travel, you’ll drive around in a vehicle called the Cradle Coffin, which you can customize.

The trailer opens with a heady Arthur C. Clarke quote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The trailer shows the protagonist, a young woman with a silver bob, and the large mech Magus adventuring through mountainsides, working together to harvest AO crystals, and fighting large dog-like enemies called “Enders” and violent mechs. In the mysterious end of the trailer, a man gets shocked awake by a pixelated vision of the protagonist.

The game will also have a unique PvP option, wherein playing online will support encounters with others plays on their own missions — you might collide head to head while trying to gather precious supplies.

“With the emergence of technology these days, and how artificial intelligence [is] slowly becoming more prominent in our daily lives, we were particularly interested in how humans and AI would interact with each other in the future,” said Yosuke Futami, producer at Bandai Namco in a PlayStation Blog. “Will they coexist? Do they have the same belief on feelings, or sense of emotion? Can they intertwine?”