The opening moments of Blackwind put you in a spaceship with Jimmy Hawkins, an innocent and curious teenager, and his father, an inventor and technology guru who shows Jimmy that he has created a mech-like Battle Frame with an embedded AI. Suddenly, the spaceship is shot down over a planet called Medusa-42, and Jimmy is stuck in the mech and tasked with figuring out why the spaceship got shot down, finding his father, and navigating the hostile terrains of Medusa-42 that is teeming with an alien species known as the Raknos. The basis of the story is simple and engaging enough, and Jimmy is enough of a blank slate that he can be relatable to most people and has a lot of room for growth. For the first half of the 5-6 hour story, the plot progresses in a meaningful and understandable way that, though entirely predictable and thoroughly unoriginal, provides a logical background for the gameplay and a loose enough semi-linear structure as we watch Jimmy fight through hordes of Raknos and uncover more secrets about their origins and their past interactions with the humans already on the planet.

"Blackwind is just a frustrating experience from front to back. It has a hint of a clear vision, but on so many levels it fails to provide balance, a unique selling point, and most importantly, fun."

The story takes a turn for the worse in the later stages in both pacing and content. Without wishing to spoil, there are themes that Blackwind attempts to explore in the later stages of the game that neither it nor its teenaged protagonist have a solid grasp on tackling. It fails to have any discussion of the moral complexity of some of the things it tells you to do and seems to assume your full agreement. In doing so, it also draws out its runtime with an extra hour or so of what feels like padding at the end that culminates in an undeserved and unsatisfying conclusion. It tries to do far too much with far too little in its story and ends up dropping the ball entirely. It doesn’t help that the writing implies the game doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest, with Jimmy and his mech speaking in quips and eye-rolling one-liners like “I feel like I’m playing a video game right now.” There are certainly some laugh-inducing lines, especially ones coming from the AI, but it isn’t enjoyable enough, nor does it have enough unique in-game one-liners, to keep it from getting old fast.

On the gameplay front, Blackwind has a few notable ideas. Taking from top-down shooters of the past, Blackwind is a fixed-camera action game. You control Jimmy in the Battle Frame as he fights primarily through hordes of Raknos, from the grunts to the most powerful elites. The Battle Frame has a typical suite of melee attacks, longer-range shooting, and special abilities, and there is a surprisingly diverse list of skills and abilities to unlock in the Battle Frame’s skill tree. At a point, you also unlock a “Dark Mode” of the Battle Frame that gives you a limited-time damage and speed upgrade. At a baseline level, the combat is functional enough. I have some issues with the precision of the gun’s aiming, which feels often like it offers less help than needed in auto-aim, but the progression of your powers with the strength of the enemies feels somewhat natural, and often I felt like the upgrades I was getting were making me noticeably and satisfyingly stronger.

But the combat itself suffers from a long list of smaller balancing and pacing issues that make Blackwind increasingly frustrating. Some enemy attacks, for example, have a pushback effect that occurs every time you’re shot. Frequently these shots come in dozens at a time, so unless you can time an almost frame-perfect dash out of the line of fire, you’re stuck being juggled for a few seconds. When you get enemies down to a certain health, too, you can perform a kill on them, which are enjoyable to watch to a point, but they take far too long to complete and grind the pace of combat to a halt. There are also a handful of separate opportunities to be hit by explosives, like exploding enemies or targeted missiles, and more often than not, the amount of time taken when you’re knocked down by one explosive is enough to allow you to be hit by most or all of the explosives coming your way, meaning that getting hit by even one explosive can snowball into a quick death or critical health loss.

"The combat itself suffers from a long list of smaller balancing and pacing issues that make Blackwind increasingly frustrating."

There are a lot of these types of little things that contribute to making Blackwind a somewhat difficult game at times. In a vacuum, that’s not an inherently negative characteristic, but in this case, much of the difficulty comes at the expense of the game rather than as part of a learning process. Most instances where I had to retry a battle multiple times over ended not because I learned the enemy patterns or how to best tackle a fight, but rather because I found a way to break the encounter. Especially in the late game, I often found myself looking for ways to work against Blackwind rather than with it. It’s also hurt by some severely inadequate checkpoints, which often send you back to a spot far earlier than necessary and make you replay sections you’ve already beaten or solved for no particular purpose.

Outside of combat, Blackwind also contains a handful of puzzles that either involve you trying to unlock a specific series of doors or open a path to a new area. Like the combat, these puzzles are passable on a foundational level, especially the ones that see you running through corridors looking for a key or passcode, as they’re usually somewhat interesting to solve. But the issue with many of the puzzles, as well as in the rest of the game, is a severe lack of signposting. I found myself more than once running around multiple of the somewhat colorfully diverse, if not incredibly pleasing to the eye, large areas looking for a path forward for close to half an hour because the game has no objective markers, nor can you look at any minimaps in more detail than in the corner of the screen. It also suffers that the environments, especially indoors, are highly uniform, so aside from a few landmarks, it’s very hard to tell where you are in relation to anything else.

It’s also worth a mention that while the fixed camera is an interesting idea, it frequently works against the game’s best interests. While this should allow a clear visual opportunity to showcase the next steps or points of interest, more frequently it just makes it more difficult to see off-screen enemies or other paths forward. Plus, more than a few times I had camera malfunctions, showing me areas I was likely not meant to see, not to mention a handful of times I fell through the world. I like the idea of the fixed camera in concept, but on the tenth time of running into a mine that Jimmy could’ve likely seen but I couldn’t given the camera’s positioning, it began to test my patience.

"Blackwind doesn’t feel like it’s as fleshed out as it should be. Some of its ideas could be interesting in better, more focused and balanced games, but in the way they come together here, my main feeling was frustration, and for a game as lighthearted and colorful as this, that’s a dizzying disappointment."

Blackwind doesn’t feel like it’s as fleshed out as it should be. Some of its ideas could be interesting in better, more focused and balanced games, but in the way they come together here, my main feeling was frustration, and for a game as lighthearted and colorful as this, that’s a dizzying disappointment. What it does right is vastly outweighed by the laundry list of issues small and large that contribute to its overarching feeling of a lack of balance and a dearth of silver linings. There may have been a strong vision for what Blackwind could have been at one point, but it didn’t show up in the final product.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

"Blackwind’s core story is basically “war seen from a teenage perspective”."

Blackwind’s got an interesting premise that sees the protagonist, a teenager, being stuck inside of a mech suit and having to fight aliens. How does the game’s story and dialogue use that premise to its advantage?

James Hawkins is a teenager and this helps a lot during the game because of his natural approach to jokes and having fun.

Being a teenager, James thinks of the Battle Frame as an “expensive toy” at the very beginning. But when he faces the real threat of war, he’ll be forced to grow up quickly to make the right decisions. Blackwind’s core story is basically “war seen from a teenage perspective”. The most frequent dialogue happens between James and the Battle Frame AI. It’s a computer with no emotions but programmed to learn and evolve from its “symbiote” and it’s going to learn from a scared kid that only wants to find his father.

How much variety in mechanics does Blackwind’s combat offer with the abilities and weapons of the Battle Frame?

Blackwind features melee combat, ranged combat, auto aiming missiles, unlockable special attacks and the ability to deploy the Drone that is capable of ranged attacks and using mines and traps. The player can switch from the Battle Frame to the Drone at any moment so any fight can be faced with different approaches according to the player’s play style. Also there’s an additional power, called “Black Mode”, that allows time-warping action to deliver the most devastating attacks.

How extensive are the progression mechanics in Blackwind? How much variation can players expect in how to power up their Battle Frame as the game progresses?

Basically any of the above features I’ve mentioned can be upgraded. Many powers and features will be unlocked as the game story progresses and then they can be further upgraded. There are many progression branches the player can choose from so they will fit any play style. Just as an example: you can increase your defence skill with a shield, you can enhance the fighting capabilities of the Drone or you can turn your Battle Frame into a speed demon with enhanced dash attacks. It’s up to you.

Outside of combat, what should players expect from the game in terms of things such as exploration and optional content?

Exploration is a key point of the game. There are some “secret” areas that hide extra power ups, and a good number of alternative “skins” for the Battle Frame, hidden in the game’s levels.

"Exploration is a key point of the game. There are some “secret” areas that hide extra power ups, and a good number of alternative “skins” for the Battle Frame, hidden in the game’s levels."

What sort of platforming elements are there in Blackwind? Are they crucial to the experience, or more of an ancillary mechanic?

Platforming is an important aspect of Blackwind. For example: extended jump, gliding and ledge grabbing will allow the Battle Frame to reach for previously inaccessible areas.

How important is the story to the game? The central premise and the fact that James has some own personal stuff going on as well are interesting elements, but do they have a large role to play in the overall experience?

Actually, Blackwind’s story goes beyond what the premise says. We don’t want to spoil any of the plot twists in the game, let’s just say it’s going to be more complex than it looks at the very beginning. We also modelled the gameplay based on the game’s story to have the best mix of action, dialogue and narrative.

Can you talk to us about the game’s local co-op mode? One player plays as the Battle Frame, one plays as the drone- what can the Drone do in gameplay and combat in comparison with the Battle Frame?

At any time the Drone can be separated from the Battle Frame. The Drone can shoot, deploy mines and special traps, it’s much smaller than the Battle Frame so it can access areas where the Battle Frame can’t go.
When the two are separated, so are the powers. The Battle Frame can’t shoot when the Drone is detached, it can only perform melee attacks, it can’t double-jump (because double jumping is performed with a thruster that is part of the Drone). So when the Battle Frame and the Drone are separated they surely represent a fearsome attack force but they need each other to perform some actions. So in co-op mode the players must collaborate to progress through the game, even deciding when it’s time to rejoin as one and when to separate again.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of Blackwind be?

The whole campaign takes about 12-15 hours. That’s our usual time but I can think that someone that approaches the game for the first time can even have a longer lasting experience.

Since the reveal of the PS5 and Xbox Series X’s specs, a lot of comparisons have been made between the GPU speeds of the two consoles, with the PS5 at 10.28 TFLOPS and the Xbox Series X at 12 TFLOPS- but how much of an impact on development do you think that difference will have?

Our goal is to have the best experience regardless of the underlying hardware. Developers that are working on exclusive games for those consoles will surely have the opportunity to exploit the hardware to the last drop of performance.

"Platforming is an important aspect of Blackwind."

The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s raw bandwidth. This is faster than anything that is available out there. How can developers take advantage of this, and how does this compare to Series X’s 2.4GB/s raw bandwidth?

Surely any game will benefit from such loading speed, considering consoles haven’t used SSD since last gen. Especially those games that need to stream large amounts of data will surely receive a good boost.

There is a difference in Zen 2 CPUs of both consoles. The Xbox Series X features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.8GHz whereas the PS5 features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz. Your thoughts on this difference?

We don’t know if such a small difference will be of relevance considering that the GPU, more so than the CPU plays a greater role in a game’s performance.

The Xbox Series S features lesser hardware compared to Xbox Series and Microsoft is pushing it as a 1440p/60fps console. Do you think it will be able to hold up for the graphically intensive next-gen games?

1440p is not 4k. GPU will have a much smaller job to perform so Xbox Series S could be a valid cheaper version if not targeting 4k.

Super Resolution is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. How do you think this will help game developers?

Our opinion on this is that shading is more important than resolution. If Super Resolution is going to handle that side, developers can focus on making better looking games.

What frame rate and resolution  is the game targeting on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S?

We aim for 60 fps at native resolution (4k for PS5 and XBS/X).

People looking for more robot action on their consoles are in luck, as the action title, War Tech Fighters, is coming to consoles later in the year, as publisher Blowfish Studios and developer Drakkar Dev announced today.

As you can see from the trailer below, the game features a ton of fast-paced, stylized action around mechs, with a style hoping to mix Japanese anime mecha with Hollywood blockbuster action. The game also has a ton of customization options for your machine, with a console exclusive “Archangel War Tech” set, which includes the “Glory Sword,” “Redemption Halberd,” and “Faith Shield.” All of that will be available at the beginning, and you can play in either first or third person view in both long and short range combat as you research and level up across 33 single player missions and survival mode.

War Tech Fighters is available on PC now, having released last July, and will release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch on June 27^th.