The premise of the game is that both guns and war were outlawed at the start of the 20th century, and that nations now fight each other through formalised combat between selected teams in sanctioned WarZones. Basically, Combat by Champion meets International Showdown by Proxy. There are three sides in the game: the Imperial Marines, the Cossack Empire, and the Han Republic, which respectively draw from Britain, Russia, and China (or rather, from the wider empires of those countries). The setting is described as a "world envisioned by Viktor Antonov" of Half-Life 2 and Dishonored fame. The art, which is is rather stylised, has echoes of the industrial settings of those games.
Development came to a halt in October 2015.
Tropes to be found in the game:
- Alternate History: The setting posits a huge war at the start of the 20th century resulting in traditional warfare being outlawed (and replaced by the combat featured in the game).
- The Big Guy: Khulun, the Han Republic team's Enforcer, is large, immensely strong, and a man of few words. He was recruited from his rural home for his strength, but has little real connection to the country he fights for.
- Blood Knight: Vira, the Enforcer for the Cossack team, is driven by "vengeance[,] lust, power, and domination".
- Blue Blood: Ainsley, the Gadgeteer character for the Imperial Marines, has an aristocratic background and conducts himself as "a London gentleman through and through". His teammate, Kenna, is also the daughter of a rich lord, and as an only child was doted on by her father, resulting in some excellent fencing tutoring which stands her in good stead.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Stepan, the Brawler of the Cossack team, is described as "flamboyant, loud and intimidating". Likewise his Imperial Marines counterpart, Hagen, who "follows up every battle with an evening at the pub and a night of spectacular debauchery".
- Celibate Hero: Well, Celibate Something, anyway. Ivan, the Infiltrator of the Cossack team, apparently has something in his romantic past that caused him to become notoriously celibate.
- Character Class System: There are five classes:
- Enforcer (melee, support)
- Gadgeteer (ranged, support)
- Brawler (melee, control)
- Infiltrator (melee, stealth)
- Ranger (ranged, recon)
- Color-Coded Armies: The teams are identified by color - red for the Imperial Marines, Yellow for the Cossack Empire, and green for the Han Republic.
- Cool Sword: Several characters fight with swords. In particular:
- Akamu has a notably large one.
- Jeon is "religiously devoted" to everything about her Korean swords.
- Dark Secret: Park-Yi, Ranger for the Han Republic team, "keeps his past to himself", and only the "few who know his full history know the truth of his savagery" - details not specified.
- Defector from Decadence: Akamu (one of the Enforcer characters) was raised as royalty in his island homeland, but didn't want that life. He instead joined the Imperial Marines to fight as a warrior.
- Dissonant Serenity: Jin is described as occupying a sort of "mystical trance", fighting as though she is in a "choreographed dance ritual".
- Fantasy Gun Control: Gunpowder was "banned following a cataclysmic world war at the dawn of the 20th century", giving rise to the game's melee-leaning, gun-free combat mechanics.
- Gadgeteer Genius: One of the classes - called Gadgeteer, naturally enough - has this as their job.
- Martial Medic: Fei Wong is a martial arts master, but is also a physician and acupuncture specialist.
- Military Brat: At least two. Andrea, the Imperial Marines' Infiltrator character, is explicitly described as this, having grown up in a military family and environment (and making use of the resulting connections). On the Cossack team, Dmitri was also raised in a military environment.
- Recruiting the Criminal: The Imperial Marines team's Brawler character, Hagen, was facing charges of manslaughter (and a firing squad) until offered a chance to sign up instead.
- Sliding Scale of Cooperation vs. Competition: In the fixed team category of competition, with 32 players.
- The Smart Guy: While the Gadgeteer of each team likely tends this way by default, Mykola of the Cossacks is a particularly good fit, being the only one on his team with formal education.
- There Are No Coincidences: A belief of Akamu, the Enforcer on the Imperial Marines team.
- Tomboy: The Imperial Marines team's Infiltrator, Kenna, has an aristocratic background, but had her tomboy tendencies indulged by her father rather than suppressed. This meant a lot of expensive fencing tutors, leading to where she is today.
- Undying Loyalty: Ivan, although not actually keen on fighting, does so out of loyalty to the Bohdan family, whose estate took him in after he was orphaned.
- Wrench Wench: Jin, on the Han Republic team, is a Gadgeteer Genius who grew up assisting her inventor father, and so might fall under this, although at the finer, more delicate end (clocks, etc) of the wrench-wielding spectrum.
