‘Echo’ is ‘Metal Gear’ with a ‘Bodysnatchers’ Twist, and You’ll Want to Get In On It

  In the video game world, there’s a lot of bitching about innovation. Too much, or too little, and we’re all equally pissed. The big ol’ blockbuster franchises are terrified to change anything major, lest they incur the wrath of fans and their death-threats-sending mob mentality. As a result, we’re left with a mountain of identikit Futuristic Space Marine Shooters to sift through, which sucks as well.  

As such, cynical old bastards like me approach most newly-announced titles with the same attitude we would a new Bieber album: we know slim-to-eff-all about it, but we’re goddamn sure it’s going to be a barrel of balls.

Still, it’s always nice to be surprised occasionally. Echo piqued my interest like it’s never been piqued before. I was piqued ‘til I could be piqued no more. It piqued and it piqued and it blew my house in. Let’s take an ogle.

What we’re dealing with here is an action adventure set in a fancy-ass VR palace. Your goal is to infiltrate it, get to the core, and it’s all very Metal Gear-ish and stealthtastic at first glance. But there’s much more to it than that.

There are guards all over the darn place, natch, and these guards are… you. The way you deal with them, whether it be by gunning them down, tackling them, sneaking around or whatever other means you choose, will be ‘logged’ and remembered by the palace’s intelligence. During the next cycle (the environment reboots every few minutes), the guards, echoes of you, will have learned everything you did and will use it against you. If you shot them, they’ll have guns and will shoot on sight, all of that good stuff.

This is interesting stuff, right here. Whether Echo lives up to the promise of the concept is another thing, but there’s potential here. It’s a long way to next year’s launch, but until then check out the awesome trailer that came with the reveal: