“Project Impact” Is the New Game From The Ascent Developers, and Here’s What We Know of This First-Person Cyberpunk Game So Far
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Neon Giant, the developers behind The Ascent, has announced they are working on a first-person, next-generation cyberpunk immersive sim, first-person, tentatively codenamed “Project Impact.”
We recently sat down with the co-founders and creative directors at Neon Giant, and although they’re keeping things close to their chests, we have some fresh details on the project, including some first-look teaser screenshots.
What We Learned About Neon Giant’s “Project Impact”
So, what exactly is Project Impact? Well, that was a question we recently got to ask the developers of The Ascent, Neon Giant, who’ve been working on this brand-new IP for some time now. There wasn’t much to “share” as the project seemed pretty early in development, though in our closed briefing with the studio, we learned a bit about Project Impact and looked at some early screenshots and the studio’s goal and ambitions for the project.
The short of it is that Project Impact is a first-person open-world game set in the fictional location of Port Desire (not to be confused with Puerto Deseado, Argentina), in a Cyberpunk setting. Although the studio has yet to set a date for when the game takes place, they did tell us to expect a far more grounded world and narrative approach than in their previous project, The Ascent.
The team will be leveraging Unreal Engine 5 for this project and is describing it as a very ambitious “step up” from The Ascent. Despite being a different genre than The Ascent, in a lot of ways, Project Impact is a return to form for the studio as many of its devs previously worked on first-person shooters before The Ascent, with both co-founders and creative directors Arcade Berg and Tor Frick having previously worked at MachineGames on the Wolfenstein franchise.
The name “Project Impact,” which is a codename, has a few meanings, not just for the game but also for the studio. For the game, we were told that the studio wanted to create something with a lot of interactivity and a goal of making players feel like they would impact the world. This suggests that we’ll likely get some sort of decision-making with multiple branches, though that wasn’t directly confirmed to us. The team also mentioned that they’re trying to add a lot of extra “oomph” and “impact” to elements like animation, sound, and special effects to help deliver an extra sense of force for the title. As a studio, it functions as a design mantra for the game, with Neon Giant looking to make an impact in the industry with Project Impact.
Check out the first screenshots provided to us by Neon Giant:
Much inspiration for the game will be drawn from comics, books, music, and film. However, the studio stressed that, although the game will incorporate some tropes from the Cyberpunk genre, it is not beholden to any specific source. This is their world; they get to choose how to build it and tell its story. Undoubtedly, with the words used to describe what the game is so far, many may already think this is going to be a Cyberpunk 2077 clone of sorts. We asked the studio to comment on this, and they quickly shot down the comparisons, describing this project as a game that doesn’t exist yet, which is why they’re making it, as it’s the kind of game they believe should exist.
A dream project, one that Krafton, which acquired Neon Giant in 2022, fully believes in. Neon Giant explained to us that, despite being under the wing of a much larger company, it retains creative control over its projects. Only staff from Neon Giants are working on developing their games. In many ways, the independent mindset they previously had remains, allowing them to navigate development their way. A system the studio believes will help them make better and more fun games, something we’ll hopefully see in action once Project Impact is ready to be shown.
As I mentioned before, Project Impact is fairly early in development, with over 24 employees (which doesn’t strictly mean developers) at Neon Giant working on the title, double of what they had when they shipped The Ascent. There’s no target release window or confirmed platforms at this time.
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