Nintendo director Hitoshi Yamagami unveiled a brand new IP for the 3DS at an E3 2014 roundtable. Titled Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., the game combines third-person shooting and turn-based strategy into one package. The theme is also a mashup of sorts, meshing a steampunk vibe with a classic (silver-age) American comic books and aliens inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Developed in conjunction with Intelligent Systems, the developer behind the Fire Emblem and Advance Wars series, the game follows Captain Henry Fleming and his team — on a mission assigned by President Abraham Lincoln — as they defend Earth from an alien invasion. Fleming and his cohorts have guns and items powered by steam backpacks. Players get a limited amount of steam to use per turn on moving and shooting up aliens.
The game was devised to get more people interested in turn-based gameplay.
“People have a timidity about turn-based strategy so I started thinking about why it is that people have this aversion to turn-bases strategy games,” Yamagami explained. “There is too much abstraction in turn-based games. This creates an emotional disconnect between the player and the world of the game.”
