It’s no secret that the hero shooter genre has become a crowded market. So when the creative team at iDreamSky started planning their next game, they knew they needed to differentiate themselves.
The result was Strinova, a third-person shooter with an anime art style and unique mechanic. It’s called “Stringification” and allows you to shift between 2D and 3D versions of your character. You become paper-thin and are much harder to see and shoot. You can hover above the ground to see more of the battlefield or stick to walls to travel across or up them.
“Usually, for a player to dodge bullets or evade attacks, you move faster, jump, or hide behind a wall. This is very traditional, and almost every game does that already,” said Alan Zhang, producer of Strinova and Vice President of Game Development at iDreamSky. “Stringify is an innovation. The new mechanics, we believe, allow players higher tolerance to move around the blocks, while providing a smoother and faster experience during a match with less risk of getting shot.”
If you want to get to a higher vantage point, you can stick yourself to a wall and move directly up it, reaching the high point in a matter of seconds without attracting attention to yourself. If an enemy gets the drop on you, you can become super thin, making aiming harder and giving you a chance to escape. It also makes camping more difficult.
“If I camp on one spot, I can only see one dimension," said Jeff Lyndon, President of iDreamSky. “I won’t be able to cover the wall. If someone is sticking themselves to the wall and walking straight at me, I won’t be able to see them. You need to change your angle to make sure you’re covering the area.”
Strinova introduces a brand-new universe, where characters belong to one of three factions — P.U.S., The Scissors, and Urbino — who are fighting over Energy Crystals (the battlefield targets), and they have different belief systems and objectives. P.U.S., who stick to the present, control most Energy Crystals of the current universe. The Scissors, who believe the past allows them a better life, want to unlock more Energy Crystals that allow them to return to Earth. While Urbino, the neutral mercenary faction, believe all should move on to a better future, so they work with either side to fight for Energy Crystals.
The core mode of Strinova is Demolition, a 5v5 mode where an attacking team tries to plant a bomb while a defending team tries to stop them to protect the Energy Crystals. Characters from the P.U.S. faction can only be on the defensive team, while characters from The Scissors can only be on the attacking team, but characters from Urbino can be on either side.
“If you’re on the attack side, you probably would be missing defensive maneuvers. So you can ask your teammates to play as an Urbino character who has those capabilities,” Alan said. “Or if you’re playing as the defensive side and you’re lacking the ability to get more information about how the match is being played or where your opponent is, you’ll ask your teammate to play an Urbino character who can do that.”
Demolition is played in rounds, and after each round, your performance is assessed and you’re given points. You can use those points to upgrade your character in certain skill trees and unlock Awakening Skills that fundamentally change the way your character plays.
Each character has two distinct Awakening Skills. For example, the Urbino character Audrey starts with a heavy machine gun you can shoot on the run with lots of ammo but a wide spread. Or you can hunker down and place the machine gun like a turret, which raises accuracy but limits mobility.
Audrey’s first Awakening Skill allows the turret to slide side-to-side, providing mobility and the ability to change its firing angle. Her other Awakening Skill allows her to turn her turret into an autonomous sentry, allowing you to cover two points at once.
All of your skill tree selections and Awakening Skills reset after the match is over, so you can choose your upgrades based on what that specific match calls for. With unique abilities and Awakening Skills, even two characters who fill the same general role can end up playing very differently.
While characters and their roles were primarily built around the Demolition mode, that isn’t the only mode available. Escort also involves an attacking team and defending team, with one trying to push a payload forward while the other tries to stop it. The closed beta that launched October 10 added Team Deathmatch, a 7v7 match with the goal of reaching a particular kill count.
After two rounds of closed beta tests in select markets, the Strinova team has already made plenty of changes based on player feedback. But they want to hear even more, so they’re currently running another closed beta you can join. They stressed that they take community feedback very seriously and want to do all they can to give players the experience they want.
“We listen to the community. We create content based on what we think is cool, and we make and we test,” Jeff said. “If the community likes it, we’ll continue developing it. If the community doesn’t like it, we modify, we correct it.”
The Strinova team has added lots of content through their past beta tests, and they plan to release new maps and/or characters every two to three months. There are also collaborations with other IPs in the works, though it’s too early for the team to share details.
“Without disclosing who we’re working with, we are going to have IP collaborations on a scheduled basis,” Jeff said. “These collaborations will not just be adding a new skin. It could be coming in with a new game mode, it could be a new map, but it’s something that adds more complexity and content for players.”
Strinova is currently planned for a PC release in the very near future, and you can wishlist it on Steam now. The team plans to expand the release to consoles in 2025, with cross-progression for both platforms, so you’ll never have to start over from scratch. A mobile version of Strinova is also being developed and will be released in the near future.
The PC closed beta is live now and will run until October 21 at 5 pm (UTC+0). That’s 1 pm ET / noon CT / 10 am PT. You can check out the game’s Twitter, Discord, or official website to get all the info.
