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Chorus is an exhilarating space combat shooter with a rhythm all its ownThe wildest bait and switch moves you ever did see
The wildest bait and switch moves you ever did see
Ever sinceChorusfirst broke out of hyperspace during Microsoft’s Xbox Series X showcase last year, Fishlabs' enigmaticspace shooterhas been a tricky thing to pin down. Thefirst trailergave us a taste of its high speed combat and third-person battles, but its deep, ominous narration, hints of a mysterious cosmic power, and that final image of a planet being sucked into a black hole almost looked like it was verging into horror territory rather than plain sci-fi. Having now played around an hour of Chorus, I can safely say it’s very much a pure breed of space combat shooter, following in the same, adrenalin-fuelled vein asEVE: ValkyrieandStar Wars Squadrons.
Chorus: 101 TrailerWatch on YouTube
Chorus: 101 Trailer
The Rite Of The Hunt, as it’s known in-game, isn’t just for pulling the old switcheroo on your enemies. It also allows Forsaken to pass through blue barrier fields, giving Nara the chance to slip inside an enemy cultist ship’s hull during my hands on to blast away some crippling psychic totems that are preventing her allies from making their escape. Forsaken’s laser might be a dab hand at taking down shields cloaking the individual ships flying around outside, but these barriers won’t bow to anything, whether it’s a barrage of Forsaken’s gunship-sinking missiles or a rain of gatling bullets. Instead, you’ll need to deploy Nara’s time-bending Rite powers to win the day here, giving us an early glimpse of some of Chorus' more puzzle-themed objectives that will come much later in the main campaign.
Despite flying in such close quarters, Nara’s Rite Of The Hunt power can be used as a vital puzzle tool here, allowing her to instantly double back to hit hidden switches, and there were also hints of crumbling walls you could boost through to reveal alternate pathways. Fishlabs said that you’ll be able to revisit these temples and unlock new areas with future powers you acquire, although quite what lies at the end of these Metroidvania-tinged offshoots remains to be seen.
Image credit:Plaion
The former fall into one of three categories. When you start Nara’s journey, your only line of offense is your trusty gatling gun, but you’ll eventually add the aforementioned laser blaster and missile launcher to Forsaken’s toolset, which are mapped to the D-pad on your controller (which is the recommended way to play). Modifications, meanwhile, are much more plentiful, consisting of things like ignition boosters, heat sinks, laser amplifiers, gyro stabilisers, crystal dischargers, thermal conductors, tracking algorithms and much, much more to help boost Forsaken’s stats even further.
While it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to go as far as turning Forsaken into completely different kinds of ship with these extensive modifications, careful planning and sensible equipment choices will likely still play a key role in its moment-to-moment dogfights. Chorus is tough, and its enemy AI are no joke. They will hunt and seek you down with relentless determination, and you’ll need to use all of Nara and Forsaken’s tricks to succeed, whether it’s tapping your left analogue stick to perform a simple evasive manoeuvre, boosting out of harm’s way with the left trigger, drifting with the left shoulder button to carve through impossible corners, or indeed pulling the old Rite Of The Hunt bait and switch with a tap of the B button.
Image credit:Plaion
At times it can feel like your left hand almost has too much to do, as you’ll also need to switch weapons frequently on the D-pad to take down your enemies effectively, in addition to steering (and dodging) with the left thumbstick. In a particularly heated fight that saw Nara and a group of rebels invade a star city to claim back a travel gate, the main objective involved taking down six glowing energy stations to prevent a defence node from activating and wiping out the rest of my party, and the finger gymnastics involved sometimes got a little bit hairy in places.
Much like Doom, Chorus is a game that thrives on constant movement. Slow down or stay in one place for too long trying to line up a shot and you’ll be ripped to shreds in no time. Yes, you may need to take multiple runs at a turret or enemy weapons cache as a result as you try and get your bearings, but you’ll come out the other end with a lot more health in tact than if you’d spent a few extra seconds strafing just a few inches to the right to get it on the first go.
Indeed, aside from the star city invasion, one of my favourite missions in the demo was taking out a hidden base nestled around a field of asteroids, as it taught me the importance of playing fast and loose pretty quickly. As well as shooting down individual ships, I also had to destroy some more glowing energy stations to disable the base’s launch pads (so they wouldn’t be able to launch even more ships), all while under heavy turret fire and manoeuvering through tight gaps in the rock. Sure, the whole ‘shoot glowing power boxes’ may have been used twice in fairly quick succession during my hour-long demo, but attaching them to launch pads here still helped to maintain a sense of variety in what I was doing. Whether Fishlabs will be able to keep this up over the course of Chorus' 10-13 hour campaign, however, we’ll have to wait and see.
