Tokyo Game Show 2023

Synduality: Echo of Ada May Be Too Ambitious for It's Own Good

At Bandai Namco's Pre-TGS event, I was able to spend some time playing Synduality: Echo of Ada. Touted as a PvPvE mecha looter-shooter with huge open maps, the game is ambitious—but perhaps too much so for its good.

Taking place several decades before the Synduality: Noir anime, Synduality: Echo of Ada is set in a future where the surface of the earth is largely uninhabitable due to a mixture of monsters and corrosive rain. For humanity to survive, they must collect crystals that grow on the surface and take them back home. In this game, you play as a mecha pilot charged with gathering these crystals alongside your personal android copilot.

The game contains two interconnected modes, one single-player and the other multiplayer. In the single-player, you embark on a quest to investigate the fall of humanity's subterranean paradise, Amasia, with a set mecha and gear. However, it is the other mode that is the true focus of the game.

Online Raid, as it is called, drops you and your AI partner into a massive map to gather crystals, scavenge whatever you can carry from the ruins of the old world, and unlock more single-player missions. The trick is that you are not alone—the surface is full of both monsters and other player-controlled mecha. And herein lies both the hook and the potential downfall of this game.

Synduality: Echo of Ada's main feature is that it's a PvPvE game. In a Q&A with the game's producer (Yōsuke Futami) and director (Kataoka), the pair stressed that you can focus on a PvE or PvP playstyle—and that the game will even adapt to you by offering you missions in tune with how you play. The issue is that it is far easier and more rewarding to simply PvP and prey on the PvE players.

The PvE gameplay loop is 1) arriving on the surface and 2) scavenging crystals and equipment while 3) fighting monsters before 4) going to an elevator for extraction. The PvP gameplay loop is 1) camp an elevator 2) kill a worn-down PvE player trying to take their haul home, and 3) extract yourself.

In theory, this should create a tension-filled experience each time you try to leave the map—and it does. The problem is that if you are one of the PvE-focused players, death carries a far larger punishment. After all, if a PvPer dies, all they have to do is re-sortie and make their way back to the elevator to start camping again. Meanwhile, a PvE player has lost the huge chunk of time that it took for them to gather everything—and they are faced with having to do the same thing again. It just feels bad in practice.

That said, the creators of the game said during the Q&A that there are features in the game to help mitigate this negative experience. Your AI partner will learn to mark places on your map where player deaths have occurred (to prevent you from falling into an ambush) and will warn you verbally when approaching danger beyond your current ability to handle. There will also be a system that identifies those with a history of PvP—helping you know from the start whether they are friends or foes.

However, in my time with the game, I can't help but feel that won't be enough—especially since there are no guilds or way to sortie as a team (though you can try to make alliances with the mecha you meet randomly in the field). I did four separate gathering missions. For the first, I simply ran out of time with the demo. For the second, I managed to successfully extract a full load thanks to finding an unguarded elevator. For the third, I was sniped a few moments after spawning and tried to run away—only to be trapped between a group of monsters and the PvPer with nothing but my starting gear. For my final run, I went full PvP and was richer and better-armed than I had been in any of my previous playthroughs in half the time.

When all is said and done, though Synduality: Echo of Ada is hoping for an equal mixture of coop and versus play, the game feels destined to become a PvP hellscape where the PvE elements are left largely abandoned. While that may be great for the subset of players who love PvP, those who are just fans of the anime and want to get more of the backstory are likely to be more frustrated than anything else. Of course, there is still plenty of time for fine tuning so hopefully the game will continue to receive balance updates as the game moves closer to release.

Synduality: Echo of Ada currently has no set release date and is scheduled to be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.