This game diverges from a traditional mech experience, yet remains casual enough to be classified as one. Synduality Echo of Ada is a PvPvE mech extraction shooter where players are aided by an AI partner known as a Magus. Together, you must survive encounters with xenomorphic creatures and other players in the hunt for resources. Why hunt for resources? To live underground at a level beyond mere survival.
The year is 2222, decades after a mysterious poisonous rain known as the Tears of the New Moon wiped out most of humanity and created deformed creatures that now prey on the population. In the wake of this calamity, humans have been forced to construct underground havens to endure. Players take on the role of a Drifter, tasked with collecting the rare resource known as AO Crystals. Working alongside your Magus, you must combat creatures called Enders and navigate surface hazards. The AO Crystals you collect can be exchanged for money, as well as used to clean and craft upgrades for your Garage.
One of Synduality Echo of Ada’s follies as a mech game is how the customizability is so limited. While this is an early access version of the game, the structure of the mechs and customization is already established. Players can change out the body, arms and legs. That is all. Players are only allowed to carry two weapons in both the multiplayer mode (Sorties) and the single player mode (Amasia Investigation Committee missions).
“One of Synduality Echo of Ada’s follies as a mech game is how the customizability is so limited.”
The real customizability is primarily in the player’s Magus. Players can style their Magus how they want, and choose what powers they want from a selection of five styles of playing Synduality Echo of Ada. To put it simply, there is the Ultimate ability that buffs Ender damage, buffs information on AO Crystals, buffs info on other players, one that disrupts mobility, and one that focuses on healing. These all make sense, but still feels a little shallow.
Sorties Are A Bunch of Fun Until It Becomes A Grind
Sorties are fun because of the unpredictability of the human element. In the multiplayer mode, players are loaded in with 11 other players in the same map region (between Northern and Southern Area) and the same randomly-chosen server. Sorties in Synduality Echo of Ada loses its multiplayer charm with the limited variety of places to go.
With the issue of lack of more locations to explore, it is similar to the struggles of Sea of Thieves at launch. There are a lot of fun mechanics and things to do, but the lack of variety suffers for a game that requires grinding. Grinding implies doing a repetitive task multiple times, but it should still have a wider variety of things to do to keep players wanting to come back.
The unpredictability of whether another player will shoot you is there, which can shake things up. So far, most players on PC in Sorties seem to be friendly and helpful. There are co-op Requests that players can complete by asking to ally with another player. The emote system is easy enough to use to initiate this as well.
If you’re interested in the Southern Area, it’s designed for players who thrive on player-killing (PK-ing). While the more peaceful questline takes place in the Association missions in the Northern Area, the Southern Area is focused on combat—killing Bandits, Enders, or other players. There’s still looting and crafting to be done, but this area caters to those more combat-ready. However, it can frustrate much of the player base, as entering here carries the significant risk of losing all gear and materials.
Overall, Sorties has a strong premise of earning money and scavenging resources to improve the Garage’s performance and appearance. However, the Requests need to be more creative to maintain player interest. Additionally, a greater variety of Enders could add much-needed diversity. Currently, there are only three types of Enders: Chasers, Gazers, and Incubators. While these NPC enemies come in different colour tiers, the lack of variety becomes noticeable. The NPC Bandits are present as well, but they become predictable after a few Sorties.
“With the issue of lack of more locations to explore, it is similar to the struggles of Sea of Thieves at launch.”
What stands out about the Enders is how they seem inspired by the machines in the Horizon games; Synduality Echo of Ada could benefit from leaning further into this inspiration. The purchasable and craftable elements are enjoyable, as are the available emotes and aesthetic items for the player’s Magus.
What is great about the encompassing gameplay is how there has not been a definite way to abuse the microtransactions in-game, other than using it to buy other Cradlecoffin skins. Someone could abuse it if they’re constantly re-buying skins with real money after dying and losing their skins.
Yes, bought skins can be lost too. Sadly, this includes the skins in the Deluxe and Ultimate editions—which should not be the case. Otherwise, this makes Synduality Echo of Ada an easy real money grind too. Ultimately, the main critique is there needs to be more to do in a bigger space for Sortie mode to keep players interested in playing. The grind and progression also feel really slow. The amount to ensure Cradlecoffin parts and weapons are not completely lost is steep if someone is constantly dying. The penalties need a bit of balancing in this respect.
The Amasia Investigation Committee Missions Gives You Something Else To Do
After checking out the Amasia Investigation Committee Missions in an early preview, the most evident improvement is how the weapons do not break as often anymore. In the early preview, weapons were breaking almost every two or three rounds of ammo. As for the damage output of enemies, the Bandits are vicious but not unreasonable. It was definitely a skill issue before, so players should do these missions better as they are going in with many hours of experience from doing Sorties.
The missions are still tough if you do not look around and find enough Repair Kits to heal. Also, strategizing fighting enemies by shooting and dodging is a must. For now, the missions are a bit vanilla in variety—like much of the rest of Synduality Echo of Ada that lacks the variety. But that must be because this is not the launch version.
Even though the solo missions provide a look at upcoming weapons players can unlock in Sorties, the weapon pool is limited to two types of each: ARs, Shotguns, SMGs and Sniper Rifles. Hopefully, there will be more choices later on.
There’s A Lot of Work To Be Done
Synduality Echo of Ada accomplishes what it needs to do for a standard extraction shooter. It still needs more variety and customization options for a mech game, as other games like Armored Core, MechWarrior and Gundam games have done well in the past. After about the first 8–10 hours of the game, the single player Investigation Missions allow the player to work on something else while they wait to upgrade higher tiered Remodels.
“Synduality Echo of Ada has an initial allure that can captivate players at first glance, thanks to its appealing anime-style graphics and a well-developed story world.”
From an extraction shooter perspective, this is just as brutal as Escape From Tarkov in its own ways. The weight capacity bogs the player down in a world where you want to keep collecting things, especially where there is a lot of risk involved in each run—and costly when ensuring more things. Essentially, the insurance cost should be cheaper as players are constantly dying and losing their things. Another way to offset this could be increasing the Request reward money amounts.
There is a certain charm in customizing your Magus with a variety of outfits, but the novelty can wear off quickly. Synduality Echo of Ada has an initial allure that can captivate players at first glance, thanks to its appealing anime-style graphics and a well-developed story world. However, the solo missions could benefit from offering more engaging objectives beyond collecting historical logs and fending off enemies. Additionally, these solo missions should be accessible earlier in the game, as they currently unlock only after about 7–8 hours of completing Requests.
There are so many reasons to keep jumping back into Sorties, maybe players just want to extract AO Crystals and make bank—or players just want to let off some steam killing other players. Either way, the early access for this game has potential but needs to also understand how to balance the way it rewards their players. As long as the devs continue to work alongside the community, this game can thrive to be more. For now, this mech extraction shooter still needs to cook a bit longer, or it should have way more things when it launches.