Yesterday, June 27th, Lightspeed Studios announced their first AAA title, an open-world martial arts tribute to the late author Jin Yong. For those unfamiliar, Jin Yong has been regarded as one of the leading authors in wuxia, a genre of Chinese fiction dealing in ancient martial artists and their heroic adventures. While there has yet to be a mainstream video game developed based on Jin Yong’s work, the author has inspired countless other adaptations onto a variety of media, from radio to film. Code: To Jin Yong is another tribute to the author, but the first game to take place in a more modern setting and bearing a release targeted to an English-speaking audience.
The gameplay trailer shows off the abilities provided by the game’s wuxia source material, allowing players to perform stylish acrobatic attacks and unleash a flurry of frenetic sword-fighting combos on their opponents. While hand-to-hand combat games must often remain somewhat grounded, a majority of this game’s combat appears to take place mid-air, as is a signature of the wuxia genre. The game looks to be integrating magic as well, the trailer showcasing some wind-based attacks, as well as the enemy’s ability to quite literally throw (giant) hands. Additionally, thanks to Unreal Engine 5, the environment seems very reactive to the player’s movements, with individual leaves falling and shifting rather than simply using a static, or canned, effect to make the environment feel more responsive. However, the trailer also clearly states that the gameplay footage may not be representative of the final product, and no word has yet been given as to a release date or platforms, so we are unsure whether the game’s movement and gameplay will be as smooth as demonstrated in the trailer.
As mentioned prior, this is the first AAA game from Lightspeed Studios, a company owned by Tencent. While they have yet to develop a game of this breadth, Lightspeed was responsible for the mobile ports of both Apex Legends and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). Again, no release date has been announced, so we may be a few years out, especially with the game’s development on Unreal Engine 5, one of the newest updated game engines. That being said, Unreal Engine 5 should give Code: To Jin Yong the upper hand in allowing players to realize their stylish wuxia dreams.