PAX West 2019: Metronomik’s No Straight Roads Establishes A New Way To Experience Music

Reflecting back to the day when rhythmic titles were an impactful genre in the gaming industry: as games like Beatmania in the late-90s spawned the mechanic of following the tempo of turntable-styled music and leading into the new millennium with Guitar Hero reconfiguring the formula to a plastic guitar, the market today does not see the same pedigree of games despite the amount of players that grew up on the genre.

However, developer Metronomik wants to change that by reinvigorating the rhythm game platform through its upcoming project, No Straight Roads. How the Malaysia-based studio plans to do that is through reintroducing values that fans of the genre love while still creating a traditional action adventure game. Thanks to Shannon Brown who represented the game on the show floor during PAX West last month, she passed on some of my burning questions to Game Director Wan Hazmer on the forthcoming title.

What No Straight Roads is follows the adventure of two indie rockers Mayday and Zuke: after being embarrassingly rejected during their audition for the titular music empire, the two form a “music revolution” against the overtaking hierarchy of EDM that currently consumes the set megalopolis of Vinyl City. Interested to dissect the reason for this music-based project, which drew me to cover the game during the event initially, I asked Hazmer why create a game focused primarily on music as the title’s main aspect for gameplay.

“NSR was born from our love for music and visual storytelling,” Hazmer shares in an emailed response. “I think music is underutilized in game design and even though everyone loves music, not everyone can be a musician. So the goal here was to bring the harmony of music and video games to everyone without turning it into a rhythm game.”

In a separate response, Hazmer shares his love for rhythm-based games like the already mentioned Beatmania as well as Gitaroo Man for PlayStation 2, however, he was aware of players foreign to the formula of these games and wanted to create an experience that opens to more players. “Whenever I ask my friends whether they want to join me, they say ‘No, I’ll just watch’. We really wanted to come up with a concept that would appeal to fans of traditional action games, while changing how music is used in games, so we came up with this concept of fusing music with the gameplay of a 3rd-person action game.”

During my demo of the game, I played the introduction prologue which provided the bare essentials to any action-adventure title such as free control of my character and jumping. But the title soon expands its canvas, or should I say note sheet, of gameplay mechanics that grasp the game’s audible-centered combat system. Bouncing between either of the two protagonists will range from either a swing of Mayday’s guitar or Zuke with a wave of his drumstick to attack enemies and shoot a projectile with the sound of their respected instrument when picking up music notes in battle.

Although offensive gameplay is as standard as you might expect, countering enemy attacks is where the game turns up the volume on the third-person action genre. Fighting back against hostile strikes relies on the players understanding of the level’s unique soundtrack and learning which cue to anticipate the enemy to attack. For the sake of my time with the game, visual indicators assisted me with beginning battles, but slowly transitioned me to listen to my surroundings.

Hazmer explains that players will have a learning curve to this game element and the on-screen cues will guide them along the way when first starting. But the game will slowly shift towards using lesser notifications which then require those playing to convert to listening for the audibly tangible baselines and drum beats. The Game Director adds on that the team’s aim towards the game’s music will result in players appreciating the medium more upon reaching the game’s credits.

For those who already enjoy music through video games, rhythm game players specifically, Hazmer says that the studio is looking to create a unique difficulty mode suited for those who fancy a bigger challenge through the game’s pulsing combat system. “We also want the game to appeal to rhythm gamers as well, so we are also working on special hardcore difficulty options that we think they will love.”

Being a player who did not indulge in rhythm-based games prior to No Straight Roads, the learning curve was tricky to grasp once the demo began to remove my training wheels with the build I used on the show floor. Continuing onto the climaxing boss battle, I slowly grasp a better understanding by then roughly before my health bar for both characters were depleted. Overall though, the concept does execute well, but for me personally took more time to break in.

Another question that urged me to pursue this project was how long the development for the game has been: knowing that Hazmer formerly worked at Square Enix on Final Fantasy XV and studio Co-Founder/cousin Daim Dziauddin illustrated concept art for Street Fighter V at Capcom, I was interested how the game came to be seeing the two’s work prior to the title. Hazmer reveals that the idea for a rhythmic action hybrid game tracks back to his time before finishing his work at Square Enix. It wasn’t until leaving the developer that he felt it was the right time to form their own studio in late 2017.

“We’ve always wanted to do something special with music but, as we both had our own careers, it was just about waiting for the right time to make it happen.”

No Straight Roads will be available for PlayStation 4 and PC with a scheduled release aimed for Early 2020.