Ashfall shows off its wasteland in a new trailer filled with combat, robots, dinosaurs, giant capybaras, and more.

Ashfall is Your Fallout MMO If You Want a Wasteland in Downtown Asia

If you’ve ever loved the idea of exploring a post-apocalyptic wasteland that’s not set in the United States, then Ashfall should be one to keep an eye on. Instead of the likes of California or Washington D.C., we’ll get to explore some of the Eastern countries of the world. Where this is, specifically, hasn’t been mentioned just yet. 

Ashfall is an MMO that’s being developed and published by NetEase Games that mashes tons of inspirations together into a package that’s crazy enough that it just might work. 

Welcome to the Eastern Front

Ashfall’s New Wasteland trailer shows off tons of things that we’ve come to expect when it comes to a post-apocalyptic videogame. Ruined highways, abandoned vehicles, and dilapidated buildings are just some of the things initially presented. Things get better as a gigantic Capybara-like creature graces our screen. Apparently, this is a potential mount and best friend out in the Eastern Wasteland. 

We also get some backstory into our journey. Just like in similar Fallout fashion, we start our lives in an underground Vault, unaware of all the troubles out in the world.

But once this opens up, we are greeted by some amazing vistas and locations. We see sprawling fields of purple grass, cratered mountains, and other grand settlements. Footage also shows us some temples of Eastern origin, as well as cities with Oriental influence. 

Judging by the over 3-minute-long footage, there’s going to be a ton to explore. Even better, there’s going to be a ton of things to shoot at. 

A Wild Ashfall Wasteland

Ashfall will have a whole lot of enemies to kill, it seems. We can see some gigantic crabs that skitter all across a pond. Bandits are a staple of this genre, and Ashfall has them in spades. We will also get assailed by various mutated creatures, machines, and more.

But Ashfall looks like it wears some of its influences on its sleeve. Some of the enemies look somewhat… familiar, to say the least. The most notable of foes look to be the robotic Sentinels from The Matrix movies. They float along ominously across a lush mountain range and what looks like some World War II trenches. Assailing this area are also a bunch of T-800 Terminators from the Terminator movies. 

Here’s What Makes You SPECIAL!

Ashfall’s New Wasteland trailer is a bit rough in places. As stated earlier, some of the locations shown off truly look great and new. But some characters up close look awkward and less detailed. But this is already a great improvement from their initial gameplay video back in September 2022. In fact, the producer Tree is quite open with the community, as she casually updates the game’s fans in various Developer Blogs. 

One of the biggest criticisms in the initial reveal was the game’s graphics. Apparently, a lot of people considered the visuals to be from the PS3 era. But Tree acknowledges this, and details that this was due to the parallel development between three platforms: PC, console, and mobile. As the mobile front won’t have the graphical capabilities of its bigger brothers, they had to scale back. And since the project isn’t a AAA title, they can’t work on the very best details all at once – that will come later as they improve and optimize for other platforms. 

Other criticisms included the extremely jarring firing recoil, which was dizzying, to say the least. In their mind, unmaintained weaponry would definitely feel awkward to use, and thus would also have questionable recoil. But this was overdone, so they’re revisiting this issue. Another (though funnier) issue was that some enemies were called “Cafeteria Supervisors” and that they were armed to the teeth. Apparently, these foes come from a drug-cooking cave called the Tasty Cafeteria, hence the name. 

Standby for Ashfall

Ashfall is being developed and published by NetEase Games. Specifically, their Legendary Star studio is helming the project. It will be playable on PC, mobile, and consoles although it can only be wishlisted on Steam at the moment. The game is also currently set to release sometime in Summer 2024, with some beta periods coming this year. 

Another noteworthy thing about Ashfall will be its music. The title has some legendary names in the music industry attached to it: Hans Zimmer, Steve Mazzaro, and Inon Zur. These heavy hitters are responsible for some amazingly memorable pieces in Hollywood as well as video games. 

In other news, check out Diablo IV Launch Trailer Teases the Wrath of Lilith and Elden Ring Wins Best Game Writing at Nebula Awards.