Lone Echo II isn’t due out until 2020, but developer Ready at Dawn recently offered up a glimpse of some of the gameplay to come.
Lone Echo II was first announced back in mid 2018, but the first playable demo was just revealed at E3 2019 last month. Here we have 15 minutes of footage from the demo which shows some of the new gameplay that players will encounter (including an irksome new enemy that hungers for your robotic energy).
In our hands-on with Lone Echo II at E3 2019 we found that the game will be roughly 50% larger than its predecessor, and picked up some other details from developer Ready at Dawn:
Beyond the [new enemies], the Lone Echo II demo at E3 2019 leans heavily on the well established interaction mechanics of the original. You’ll find the usual lever pulling, door opening, laser cutter panels, and battery charging stations that will be familiar (and still satisfying) to players of the first game.
However, Ready at Dawn teases that there’s lots more in the way of new gameplay systems yet to be revealed in Lone Echo II, much of which is said to come in the form of new tools that the player will attain throughout the game. There’s also new characters coming, which sound like they’ll be key to the narrative, though Ready at Dawn wasn’t ready to reveal more.
Speaking of characters, Liv is of course back, but this time Ready at Dawn says she’s been upgraded to be a more dynamic part of the game. While in the original Lone Echo her movements and actions were heavily scripted, in Lone Echo II she’s said to be able to move more freely around the environment, allowing her to more naturally accompany the player throughout.
What we still don’t know much about is what’s happened to the game’s main characters, Jack and Liv, between the end of the original Lone Echo and what we’ve seen of them so far in Lone Echo II. In the E3 2019 demo the pair seem to be exploring an abandoned facility, but exactly where they are and how they intend to get home is still up in the air.
With Lone Echo II not set to launch until 2020, it’ll be a while yet before we get to see how the story unfolds.