Key takeaways from the preview:
- This is not a direct retelling of the anime, but it follows the same overall storyline.
- The designers also aim to include something in combat for more advanced/experienced players.
- The moments between the big battles are some of my favorites so far.
I have to confess something before I begin this preview: I withdrew from Attack on Titan very early. After the first season, in fact. I didn’t think it was terrible or anything. I was there for the human drama. Little people swinging around like Spider-Man and dealing with their trauma while playing a game of David and Goliath against big, scary Titans. But when these little guys started becoming Titans, well…it just wasn’t for me. But after spending some time with Attack on Titan 3 and talking with producer Hideo Suzuki, I’m tempted to give it another try…at least as a video game.
Attack on Titan 3 may have an issue, but it’s not a direct sequel in the true sense of the word. It is more of a story. Part of the reason, Suzuki told me, is because it’s been seven years since Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle. “Right after the previous game, we had already started talking about the sequel, but at that time the anime series was still in progress. So we were wondering, ‘What kind of concept should (the next one) be?’ from start to finish and sort of follow that storyline?
But Attack on Titan 3 is not just a simple story. You will wear your ODM gear as the original character, but your story is interesting. After your team is wiped out on your first mission as team leader, your character – I named mine John Titan, not knowing that I could later choose his gender – is too traumatized (and afraid of fighting the Titans) to continue. But since they are also great engineers and generational talents when it comes to ODM equipment, they continue to fix things and train new hires. It’s an interesting role to play; games rarely ask you to play as deeply traumatized people who are so badly broken mentally that they have to step away from what they were great at.
Suzuki, however, told me that this decision was intentional. “The reason we had this kind of story in the beginning is because we had to establish that the Titans are the enemies of humans. So the character goes into battle, he experiences the loss and the trauma, and then comes back with a stronger determination to fight the Titans from that point on. This time, the character is introduced as an elder to Eren and other characters. And I mean, even if he’s a senior soldier or more veteran, if he’s so strong from the start, there’s no won’t have much story to tell so we have to have some sort of soldier in the beginning, he has to go through some setbacks and it’s this incident at the beginning and then he’s going to sort of play the role of Eren and the mentor to the others, but then they’ll work together and then they’ll recover from the trauma and grow up afterwards.
After playing with the character creator, I am assigned to the 104th Cadet, where I will instruct Eren Jaeger, Armin Arlett, and Mikasa Ackerman, among others. My job, along with another badass instructor named Keith, is to turn these kids into real soldiers. But first we have to break them. You have to prepare the clay before you can shape it. But these recruits aren’t just blank slates. Like the series (and manga) it’s based on, Attack on Titan’s characters are their own people, sometimes to a fault. As soon as the initiation ceremony is over, Eren Jaeger bombards me with questions about why there aren’t more recon missions and why we don’t retake the walls, and I’m forced to watch my character relive his own shame. It’s a nice moment.
But I also need to get to know these kids. Attack on Titan is probably more famous for its high-flying human-Titan fights or draggy Titan-on-Titan fights, but it’s a human story at heart, and building relationships with other characters is an essential part of Attack on Titan 3.
“There are many ways for the player to form a friendship with anime characters, and one of them is to give them gifts,” Suzuki tells me later. “A second is to eat together in a mess hall, and they can also invite these characters into their room and have conversations. So by pleasing other characters, they can build relationships, better friendship, and that will then affect combat… Those comrades that you build friendships with, you can invite them or take them on these outside missions or outside scouts. And outside of the wall of course you have battles against Titans and the player and these characters can work together to perform skills We call them Buddy Arts… So the better your relationships are with these other characters… the better your outside missions or scouts will be.
But first I need to get them into combat shape, which means learning how to use ODM gear. Tackling rocks and trees before lunging to the next spot is a blast, and it feels like you have a lot of control over every aspect of the movement. There are several new features in the series, such as the ability to anchor yourself to buildings or trees, precisely control your altitude or even slip under arches. When I asked about the ODM gear overhaul, Suzuki told me they wanted to make sure they kept pace with how games have evolved since Attack on Titan 2, but they also wanted to offer something for more advanced players. “I think in the previous game it was playable enough for people who aren’t advanced players, but in this one we wanted those advanced players to play better, fight better, and have a greater sense of accomplishment when they beat the Titans.
“But improving the ODM wasn’t enough,” Suzuki told me. The Titans need to improve because the Omega Force team wanted these fights to be meaningful and epic enough. “In the previous game, the range of control (ODM) that you had was quite narrow, and at the same time, it was simpler and easier for all players at all levels. And this one, the base is still simple… but this time, you had more control over a lot of the actions you take and then you could really fine-tune your tactics accordingly… but that wasn’t enough. If ODM only got better, then the Titans wouldn’t be as threatening to players. So we had to evolve the Titans. We also improved their systems, for example their algorithm and their combat patterns. So they still pose a threat to the Titans and are big obstacles (for) humans.
I finally got my first chance after moving to a later point in the story. I have to face some human enemies, but they’re not too bad, and it helps me get a feel for real combat before facing a Titan: the War Hammer Titan, to be exact, and it’s a real fight. Unlike the Titan I fought earlier in the game’s tutorial, I can’t damage it directly. Instead, I have to wear him down by filling his break gauge before I can kill him. Fighting effectively means dodging and parrying attacks while making my own attacks, but it’s more of a battle of patience than anything else. I am like a mosquito fighting an elephant; I have to take it out one bite at a time, and it will take much less effort for them to crush me than it will to cause significant harm.
Luckily, I have the tools. I just have to manage them. Healing tonics supplement me when he hits me, new blades replace old ones when they’re dull and no longer make dents, and combat arts deal more damage when I do enough damage to win them. But the coolest by far are the Buddy Arts, which are very flashy. I feel good every time I take one out. But even with them, combat is about endurance. I almost make it, but I stumble at the end. Not bad for a mosquito.
What I played in Attack on Titan 3’s combat was memorable, but what stuck with me after my demo was over was all the time I spent outside of combat with the other characters in that world. This makes Titan fights harder than if they happened all the time. “It was completely intentional,” Suzuki told me when I asked him about it. “This IP can be made up of all the battles. I mean, no one is going to complain about that, but because the anime characters are so appealing, they have so much depth. So showing their daily lives will probably make fans happy… In manga and anime too, there are a lot of comedic moments and events. So there’s a sort of tension and release relationship. I think that makes the game more enjoyable.”
Suzuki told me he hopes introducing a new character will help old fans see the story in a different way and introduce new players to Attack on Titan, but Attack on Titan 3 doesn’t just recreate the anime. There are also lots of new things to discover. “We also have original content, so we have a lot of side stories and events. And we don’t really say it out loud in interviews and stuff, but… we’ve actually put so many of these side stories and events into this particular title and we work very closely with Kodansha, the intellectual property holder. And so I want players to enjoy every moment of that.”
Suzuki also dropped an additional detail that fans are eagerly awaiting as we wrap up: “We have already announced that the opening sequence of the anime will be produced by Mappa.
In my experience, Attack on Titan 3 is juggling a lot of plates, and its ambition to do something new with the franchise is pretty laudable. Will this make me an Attack on Titan guy? Who knows? But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to don my ODM gear one more time and help my character complete his quest for redemption. You can’t hide from the worst times in your life, but you can choose how you face them and who you face them with. Either way, you must learn to live with them and fight your demons (and your Titans) head on.
While you’re here, check out these recent previews of other great upcoming games we’ve recently discovered!
Will Borger is a freelancer at IGN. You can find him on Bluesky @edgarallanbro.
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