Liuyin’s World Captivates With Style and Intriguing Gameplay

As cyberpunk’s paranoid ideations become prescient, if overblown, concerns in the real world, an increasing number of video games are delving deeper into what these once-fanciful realities would look like if they materialised, and how we, as a race, would fight back.

Liuyin’s World – the final instalment in a trilogy isn’t the first to explore societal collapse so prevalent across cyberpunk-infused media. Here, within a grayscale metropolis a malignant artificial intelligence has figured out how to corrupt biological life by mechanising rebirth. The fabric of existence is tearing; flesh, souls, and machines are merging to create new life. And, complicating matters further, there seems a band of enemies who’re in support of this strange new world.

Our mysterious cloaked protagonist’s enemies erupt from smoke, their blue neon blade scything smoothly through cold flesh. Immediately apparent, despite the gloomy setup, is Liuyin’s World is a stylish action-RPG; a monotone city sporadically glowing in red, green, and blue; reflections on rain-soaked concrete, a near-sterile proving ground in which to unleash a suite of flamboyant combat manoeuvres. This is a combat system which rewards an ‘aggression-first’ approach. Hesitation is punished, so every skirmish needs to be tackled on the front foot. Because of this system, Liuyin’s World has received inevitable Soulslike comparison, particularly Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but crisp movement, dodging, blocking, and lavish attack manoeuvres aren’t enough on their own to place Liuyin’s World on FromSoftware’s mantle. However, there is a challenge here: some players have reported a learning curve with the game’s combat, and certainly – judging by the mini-bosses fought – combat won’t always be a walk in the park. There’s an element that Liuyin’s World isn’t training its Western players well enough, hence the combat’s reported learning curve.

But what we are seeing here is an action game with rhythm. The game presents a handful of easily dispatched opponents. Swiftly attacking via spamming attack buttons – in this early stage – unleashes a combination of stylish sword swings. Again, during this early-game timeframe, the timing of attacks doesn’t appear to be crucial. The key is to get in quick, chain a couple of combos, and move on.

Loadouts will become tweakable the further our cloaked hero goes. Customisation comes in the form of cloak augmentations, passive upgrades, and runic modules, the latter of which provide some sort of elemental charge when equipped. For instance, normal weapons can be imbued with flame skill to enhance their destructive potential, or can be attached with poison trailing ability. So, fingers crossed, combat becomes more complex the further we go. Footage direct from the developer certainly demonstrates a raft of attacking options beyond upgraded or augmented weaponry. For instance, we see a grappling line which can attach to and drag enemies towards our blade, we see more powerful warp dashes, and also some sort of mid-combo pulse blast. There’s hope here for plenty of fluidity and experimentation given the glimpses we’ve seen.

Beyond weapons, our cloaked one swiftly unveils Perception Skills whereby consuming Perception Points reveals an enemy’s soul. A holstered Soul Gun can then deal devastating damage once an enemy’s soul is exposed. This system calls to mind Hyper Light Drifter’s combination blade-and-firearm, with the Drifter’s gun recharging with every successful sword strike. Once Hyper Light Drifter’s system is mastered, combat becomes smooth, almost freeflowing. A rhapsody of dashing, slashing, and shooting. Liuyin’s World has potential to replicate this whilst iterating on the formula via the aforesaid augmentable weaponry. It’ll be fantastic if it reaches this potential.

Elsewhere, exploring Liuyin’s World is said to cater to platforming sensibilities. Non-linear level progression, labyrinthine design, branching paths, and locations unreachable until certain upgrades are acquired will be commonplace throughout. The world itself is divided into different zones, each with location-specific environmental puzzles and challenging mini-bosses. The idea that certain areas can be returned to, or that divergent paths can be taken with neither being right or wrong, suggests ample replayability via multiple approaches.

Despite the monotone colour palette Liuyin’s World, graphically, looks good. Its streets, corridors, and plazas offer a newborn, untouched charm despite this being a place that’s not lived in. At least, that’s how it seems. Zero bustle, rarely a passer by; no traffic, smog, litter. Just gloriously reflective surfaces. By any other yardstick this place would be utopian.

But, it is dystopian. Early on in the game we come across an NPC who comments on our cloaked, neon blade-wielding hero’s outfit as not “looking like one of theirs”. And they to whom they refer, as we’ve already surmised after reading the diary entry we happened upon earlier, are an enemy NPC group, furthering the AI’s mechanical biology. And we, as an intruder inside this clinical concrete city, aren’t dressed accordingly. Furthermore, as this NPC shares, we’re under the watchful eye of someone or something. “That guy up there might have spotted you”, they say.

Liuyin’s World has an intriguing narrative set up. Given the likelihood humanity’s existence is being mechanically tampered with, and there are evidently people supporting that, then it’s within reason to speculate that there’s perhaps a complex history to unpack in this world. One which describes the circumstances that lead to artificial intelligence evolving to pursue its own goals.

Maybe, in this world there exists high societal pressures and materialism placed on individuals, creating a subset of NPCs who’d rather depend on artificial. “That guy” of whom the NPC speaks might be a digital mirror of the rogue AI, or perhaps an individual has risen above the parapet to command an army. The fact is, we don’t know anything for certain. But the point is, we can speculate because the developer has done an excellent job of establishing a lore-rich world. The actions of our cloaked protagonist have meaning.

Cyberpunk’s appeal, as a genre, is becoming increasingly widespread. Rainsoaked, neon daubed, architecture hosting macabre stories of survival against tyrannical corporations harbours aesthetic appeal. But games like Liuyin’s World scratch beyond the surface of cyberpunk’s dystopian potential to prove the genre has much more resonant subject matter to tackle. Bio-engineering life isn’t a novel concept either, but in weaving the presence of souls into this world’s strange brand of fiction Liuyin’s World prods at more nebulous, almost, emotional concepts.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.