The Technomancer: Get your arse to Mars with Spiders’ second sci-fi RPG

Technomancer? I hardly know her.
Very funny. It’s a curious word, to be sure, and one that refers to a band of mystical super-soldiers able to harness the power of electricity. You play as a ‘Mancer on the run from the secret police, who has to uncover his dark past while using his powers to pummel people and monsters alike into fine paste. It sounds a bit like the setup for Total Recall.

It’s set on mars? Does the beagle 2 feature?
We can only hope so and yes, like its predecessor, Mars: War Logs, this takes place on the Red Planet. More specifically a dystopian, post-disaster version of it full of hideous creatures, struggling survivors and not much water. turns out H20 is even harder to come by on our neighbouring planet than it is on post-apocalyptic earth.

If you didn’t know it was set on Mars, you might well assume that this was a shot from Rage.
So how’s this different to War logs?
By the sounds of things, The Technomancer sticks fairly close to the premise of the first game which we loved so much we gave it a whopping, er, 6/10 back in 2013 featuring real-time brawling combat, crafting, magic electric people and aliens. It doesn’t, however, star that game’s brilliantly named hero, Roy temperance. More’s the pity.

I only like games where i can make tough decisions.
How incredibly specific. Happily, yes, you’ll be able to make decisions leading to one of the game’s five conclusions. Spiders says the game will feature “dynamic conversation dialogue”. the studio also makes mention of a ‘dynamic crafting system’ maybe it just really likes the word ‘dynamic’…

Hang on, the development team is called spiders?
Yes. Yes it is. and pun-loving games journalists everywhere thank them for that. If the name seems familiar, you probably recognise it from a bunch of other ambitious RPGs released in the past few years, all of which came out to middling reviews. the most recent is Bound by Flame, but it also made 2012’s Of Orcs and Men.

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