Microsoft has announced Clockwork Revolution, a Steampunk FPS RPG by Wasteland 3 developer inXile Entertainment, which Microsoft acquired back in 2018. This time-bending title sees you changing the past of a technologically advanced city to uncover the hidden secrets behind its advances in order to take down its corrupt leader and institutions.
Clockwork Revolution takes place in the Victorian London-inspired city of Avalon. In Avalon, steam-powered mechanical attendants serve the every whim of the wealthy industrialists, with the ruthless Lady Ironwood at the helm. After coming into possession of a time travel device known as a Chronometer, you learn that Lady Ironwood has been using time travel to change history so that she can acquire more wealth and power and keep the underclass oppressed. Now able to time travel yourself, you can change the past to oppose and undo Lady Ironwood’s machinations and instigate a revolution for those oppressed by the system.
By using the Chronometer to travel to the past, Clockwork Revolution allows you to choose how to change history, and then experience the impacts of those changes when you return to the present. The developers promise “unprecedented and complex visual and narrative depth” in how these changes influence the city and its denizens. This is inXile’s first FPS action-RPG, as well as the first game they have produced fully as part of Xbox Games Studios and with Microsoft’s resources behind them.
The developers have confirmed that Clockwork Revolution is still in early development at the moment. As per the release trailer, it will be an Xbox exclusive, as well as releasing on Xbox Game Pass. For fans of games like Bioshock: Infinite and the Dishonored games, Clockwork Revolution looks like one to keep an eye on as its development progresses.