When it comes to multiplayer games I generally fall into the asynchronous bucket, give me a leaderboard, a ghost to chase down or any sort of combination where I'm not directly encountering other players. There are times when I do choose to engage in a PvP battle but they're not my forte, so when Synduality Echo of Ada was presented I was curious and cautious at the same time. Bandai Namco recently hosted a closed network test for the game and they were kind enough to supply me access to it and once I got in I had some good times and some bad times.

The world of Synduality Echo of Ada is actually that of Earth, just hundreds of years in the future. The world was plagued by a mysterious blue rain, which decimated the population and drove the those that remained underground in a desperate attempt to survive. Eventually power became an issue and while the humans built a massive covered city, things didn’t go well and it was the creation of the AI tools, the Magus, that gave people hope again. These new tools allowed for the use of devices called Cradle Coffins, massive mech suits that allowed pilots, called Drifters, to venture out into the now destroyed world and collect AO crystals, which are used to power the places where folks live. There is likely to be quite a bit more story in the full game, but even that alone has potential to be something grand, especially as more Pilots and their Magus operate independently.

After a tutorial that explains how you pilot your mech and make use of your Magnus and why avoiding the blue rain is super important, it is time for you to get your very own pair. The Magus creation is where the customisation comes into play, as you can choose its gender, skin colour, hair colour and just about everything else. Sadly, I was not able to make it lime green or avatar blue, so I went with this weird greyish blue and then made the hair, eyes and lips super bright colours, just so it was something you couldn’t mix up with human. The final step is to pick a profile for your Magus, there were a few options, one was more geared to finding AO crystals, but the one I went for was geared towards detecting and protecting me from the blue rain. With that sorted, it was time to undertake the first mission and this is where things got good and bad.

First the good, the game will randomly drop you into a part of the selected map, which means at the start of each run, you have to scout where you are and make a plan of attack. The missions you pick up can be as simple as obtaining a few AO crystals, or as complex as using a specific gun to take down the beasts known as Enders. Using your Magus you can ping the world around you, giving you a chance to see what and more importantly who is around. The who is important as there are going to be Magus hunters, humans willing to risk the world to kill any Magus they find, but there are also actual human players in the world as well. In one run, I sourced an AO crystal near a refinery of sorts, but before I got to close there was a warning from my Magus of a Magus Hunter in the area. It was not after me though as there was another human player going after the same crystal, so I just found a place to watch what happened. It was hear that I was spotted by another player and they took a few shots at me, so I got the hell out of there.

Another run had me discovering a grand tier AO crystal, it was massive both on the map and in the world and I was chuffed to find one so close to where I started. Sadly I didn’t get to collect it as while I was trying to dig it up, which takes a lot of time, my Magus advised that a small shower of blue rain was coming, but it wouldn’t impact me to much. Sadly blue rain of any level causes Enders to go berserk, they get stronger and faster and with the noise I was making, they came right for me. This meant that my Cradle Coffin was in a bad place, I was so determined to try and break open the AO Crystal and take a few hits from the few Enders that were around, but the blue rain that was meant to be a light drizzle became a downpour and I got wrecked.

That was the bad, I was so confident going in, especially after finding that mega AO crystal, that I ignored what I should have been paying attention to. Your Cradle Coffin has two different health bars, the one most familiar is your HP, take too much damage and its kaboom for you. The other bar is your protection against the blue rain, if it goes down, then your mech starts having issues, small ones are not a big deal, but lose too much and you might find yourself in real trouble. My Magus had an ability to create a shield to protect me from the blue rain, but it takes a bit of time to charge, so it isn’t something you can spam, so I often had to find shelter. The catch with shelter is that any other Cradle Coffins in the area might see you and take a few shots at you, or stumble upon your little space, so it’s a risk/reward scenario when the rain hits.

For all that you risk, when you get rewards you can spend them on your base and mech, upgrading both gives you more option. Mech upgrades are as you might expect, ways to make your mech have more storage, carry more ammunition or even a larger battery, that last one is super important. Base upgrades allow you to restore your base to a somewhat normal look, as well as unlock research options to provide new upgrades to your mech and so on. While there is a lot in this area, it wasn’t something that I spent a lot of time in with the closed network test, as I was more keen on wandering the world.

Synduality Echo of Ada didn’t sound like my type of game going in, the PvP nature alone is a reason for me to be cautious, but the PvE is something I enjoy. The combination of them is going to be a tricky balancing act for the developers, but I think they are on the money right now. Of course, this was a very limited player pool and once the game is fully available it might be more dangerous to go it alone, but that would also be the challenge for me. I only spent around 5 hours in total within my mech and it was enough time for me to want to keep playing more,

Synduality: Echo of Ada is coming to PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, however there is no release window for the game at this time.