On more than one occasion we have told you about the enormous potential of Unreal Engine 5. The recent State of Unreal, an event that was held at the Game Developers Conference 2023 and during which not only was the UEFN released, the Fortnite editor that is likely to have an incredible impact on the future of battle royale.
The exponents of Ncsoft also took to the stage of the conference, the oriental giant which is taking advantage of the services offered by the UE5 to give life to an interactive adventure which promises an advanced technical sector and support for some latest generation technologies. We are talking about the interesting Project M, probably the working title of the project in progress at the South Korean company (here our previous preview of Project M).
A one of a kind presentation
The reason why the short Project M video shown at the State of Unreal took everyone by surprise is simple: Ncsoft didn’t limit itself to making a video presentation of the game, but it packed a sort of trailer within the trailer, in which a digital version of chief creative officer Taekjin Kim chats about the project to introduce the gameplay sequences with his commentary in the background. The man’s alter ego, which enjoys a level of detail possible only with the advanced tools of the Unreal Engine 5, also shows off some proprietary technologies of Ncsoft such as artificial intelligence specialized in speech synthesis.
What we hear for the entire duration of the movie is not Taekjin Kim’s real voice, but the fruit of the work of a complex AI who read a text after having ‘studied’ the voice print, accent and other details of the bigwig of the agency. The same intelligence also took care of matching the result to the facial movements of the 3D model, so as to make it even more faithful to the original. The outcome of this operation is promising and demonstrates once again the potential of these technologies, which are evolving at an impressive speed.
After a brief introduction, this realistic digital stunt double of Taekjin Kim picks up a controller and the real demonstration of Project M begins, which is presented as an interactive thriller inspired by the Quantic Dream productions (the authors of Heavy Rain and Detroit Become Human, just to name a couple) with a sci-fi atmosphere. The narrative plot is almost incomprehensible when viewing the trailer and the developers themselves have not revealed a single detail about the plot that will be the backdrop to the adventure, probably to avoid any kind of anticipation and ensure maximum involvement for those who will live this story.
This does not mean that the few frames shown were not sufficient to give us an idea: it would seem that at the center of the events narrated there is a young man hunted down by heavily armed criminals and wearing a particular square-shaped mask that closely resembles that face view of the Front Man of Squid Game. Given the number of explosions and the presence of a woman and a child, we do not exclude that it is the family of the protagonist, probably captured or eliminated. In short, Project M could be a story based on revenge or escape. The most intriguing aspect, however, is the one concerning the way in which everything will be told to us. The vision of the crowded laboratory that Taekjin Kim enters suggests that in the world of interactive adventure there is some technology that allows you to relive the events: if this were the case, this would also justify being able to repeat some scenes to deepen their narrative crossroads.
Lots of action and stunning graphics
On the purely playful front, Project M seems to want to offer a combination of decisions to be made, perhaps even in limited time windows, and more markedly action phases, strengthened by a real shooting system on whose effectiveness it is currently impossible to express oneself.
For example, we can choose whether to run towards a shelter or if, with a more rash move, dart towards the target and start a fist fight. When a gun is involved, Project M takes on the features of a third-person shooter, as we have already said, but we do not know the degree of operational and decision-making freedom that will be granted to us in these situations. We don’t know how the narrative crossroads will be structured in the more relaxed phases of the game and, more importantly, it is not clear whether or not there are the classic QTE (Quick Time Event) in Project M. Unless the developers have
omitted from the interface all elements related to this mechanic, it would seem that the Ncsoft title does not make use of it. We will therefore have to wait for the game to show itself again to better understand some dynamics, but the presence of a screen showing the ramifications with the various choices available, all based on a mysterious system made up of keywords, bodes well for a variety of situations which will lead to different moments also on the gameplay side. At this point it seems almost superfluous to tell you about the technical sector of Project M which, between the excellent quality of the animations and the glance of sure impact, both as regards the scenarios and looking at the characters and their own faces.
We are therefore faced with a game that we can truly define as a new generation game due to the use of technologies that were unthinkable until some time ago. Project M’s debut may not be exactly around the corner but one thing is certain: we want to know more, so that we can get a little clearer idea about its real ambitions on the playful and narrative front.
