Smelter is an action-strategy hybrid that combines real time strategy with 2D platforming stages. Players take the role of Eve, who embarks on a journey to find Adam and meets a mysterious being named “Smelter.” After some quick convincing, Eve fuses with Smelter, gaining incredible power, and agrees to help Smelter expand his empire in a joint effort to discover Adam’s whereabouts. The game unfolds in a rotation between strategy and action stages, punctuated by cinematic sequences, all wrapped up in a wacky narrative.

In overhead, Mode 7-style map stages, players control airborne Smelter, who can fly, shoot and destroy enemies and obstacles while giving commands to his troops to expand territory, build structures and unleash attack units against enemy monsters in various regions. Players control Smelter in a top-down strategic conquest as he and his Zirm forces attempt to expand his empire by completing quests and taking on an onslaught of enemies determined to stop him. Gameplay is designed with shooting and command-driven interfaces, adding modern-day tutorials to assist both veteran gamers and those new to the genre.

Once the player has completed certain NPC-driven quests and fortified key locations on the map, they will access new and exciting action-platformer stages where they control Eve infused with Smelter on foot and take on the bad guys. Eve can perform an array of melee attacks, jumps, dashes, wall grabs, Smelter special attacks and maneuvers to complete the stages and progress the story. Stages contain secret Trial Stages where the players are rewarded by completing short levels within given conditions, such as Time Trial, Don’t Get Hit, Don’t Be Seen and more.

One of the key modern-day features of Smelter is the elemental skill tree system that grants Eve and Smelter special abilities on land and air. Perform punching combos and rock shield counters with Gurabi’s earth and gravity-based skills, launch shock-infused spinning jump attacks with Eremagu’s electrified abilities, and fire long-range shooting attacks with the unstable yet deadly Nutoro elemental skill set. By unlocking new abilities, players can reach new areas and tackle stages with different approaches.

“When planning Smelter, while although we made it a priority to give our own spin on the top-down strategy and action-platformer genres, we were definitely inspired by classics like Actraiser and the Mega Man series simply because those were the games many of us loved to play and still love to play. And while that might explain some of the inspirations for the game design choices, we feel Smelter has ultimately become a combination of our team’s personalities and what each of us enjoy to read, listen to, play and watch,” says Brian Otten, one of the core developers at X PLUS.

Smelter is the product of a small team of internationals working at X PLUS in Osaka, Japan, featuring a rockin’ soundtrack by Evader and main themes by Mega Man composer, Manami Matsumae, an Osaka resident.

Smelter will be coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC on April 22, 2021 for 19.99 USD.