Article: Fly Me To The Moon by Marcus Stewart

Szczepanski and Costantini are industry veterans; Szczepanski has worked for Konami on series like Metal Gear and Castlevania, as well as with Guerrilla Games on the Horizon franchise; Costantini has tenure at Riot Games, CD Projekt Red, and Skydance. Both are massive action game fans from opposite spectrums of the genre, with Szczepanski professing his love of Platinum Games, the studio behind Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising, while Costantini is an enthusiast of Elden Ring and Dark Souls masterminds From Software.

Despite being the yin to the other’s yang, SOL Shogunate is a visceral yet rhythmic, stylish action experience. “‘Samurai Space Opera’ is both figurative, because this is an epic adventure in space, but also is very literal,” Szczepanski says. “This is a musical adventure in space.” While not actually a rhythm game, Szczepanski says music is intimately woven into the experience; the soundtrack is being carefully curated – so far, we know Japanese rock act AliA is involved with the project – to provide a soundscape that emphasizes the thrills of gameplay to the highest degree so that every major battle or setpiece feels like an adrenaline-pumping, sensory-overloading music video.

“In many ways, my process of trying to figure out what this game is supposed to be, it was spending embarrassing amounts of time just browsing through YouTube and Spotify and other places, and just jumping from band to band and band and seeing what makes me feel the strongest, and finding a way to convey these like plethora of different feelings of these songs managed to make me feel to the players was the driving force behind all this,” Szczepanski tells me.