Vortex Gaming

On the 13th, a new title appeared that I really didn't expect. Elementa's open-world new game 'Silver Palace' is the main character. Even before that, 'I Hwan' and 'Infinity', which aimed for a next-generation subculture open world, surprised users, but 'Silver Palace' also shows quality and unique charm that is not inferior to them, and is quickly establishing itself as another promising stock.

The new game 'Silver Palace', which suddenly appeared, does not have much information yet as it is a dark horse that suddenly appeared in mainland China. However, this time, a PV and gameplay trailer with Korean dubbing were released, and I have experience playing another subculture open-world RPG using Unreal Engine 5, so I would like to analyze 'Silver Palace' based on this.

First of all, there is not much information about the developer 'Elementa'. Silver Studio, which is presumed to be its subsidiary studio, is even more so. So, I looked at the companies registered on Bilibili and TapTap in China, and the company that registered them was 'Happy Elements'.

'Happy Elements' is a familiar place among subculture users as the developer of Ensemble Stars!!. In addition, they have developed various male-oriented games and puzzle games, but the male-oriented games have not maintained the same great success as Enstar, and eventually the service ended, and the Japanese branch focused on female-oriented games including Ensemble Stars!!, while the headquarters focused on puzzles and casual games. Then, after acquiring Grimoire, they expanded their spectrum again by introducing the collaborative work 'Reverse Blue X Reverse End'. And this time, they are fully challenging the subculture open world with 'Silver Palace', which is being developed by a subsidiary studio.

This move is somewhat different from the companies that have made subculture open-world games in the past. However, this experience seems to be the driving force behind making the color of 'Silver Palace' somewhat different from existing open-world games. The delicate and detailed light processing reminiscent of pure comics, various Victorian-style decorations, and the meticulously refined beauty of the eyes show a different aspect from the animation style we have seen so far. To explain what I said earlier in more detail, it's like another school that maximizes quality while taking care of popularity based on the style of pure comics? On the other hand, the details of the eyes and the painting style also have the feeling of 'Reverse Blue X Reverse End', so it feels like it is not biased towards women and is maintaining balance.

The background of 'Silver Palace', created with such delicate senses, is also an indispensable point. The main background of Silver Palace is the virtual Victorian-style metropolis 'Silvernia', which is not strictly a traditional Victorian era style. Although it has a classic design, cars run through the city instead of steam cars, and red public telephone boxes that would not have existed at the time are also noticeable.

From the point of view of drifting on a steel horse, such historical research seems to be somewhat meaningless, but anyway, the world of 'Silver Palace' seems to be based on the Victorian era style and incorporates various European elements familiar to us in a antique way. It didn't just put it in blandly, but the ray tracing and delicate light arrangement minimized the blandness of the cartoon style and made the city look more three-dimensional, which was also a factor in making 'Silver Palace' look forward to.

Now that we've looked at the surface of Silvernia, the main city, we need to look at the main character, allies, and main characters who will be active there. First of all, the main character is a 'detective', and according to the PV, he left Silvernia for some reason and then returned. Judging from the fact that the reporter who persistently followed him is criticizing him, it seems that there was a very disgraceful incident. And at the end of the PV, when the red rose dancer says that the main character has already quit being a detective, she says, "You say that, but you're very excited, aren't you?" So, it must have been such a shocking event that he quit being a detective for a while. The main storyline of 'Silver Palace' is expected to be to grasp what happened at that time and who is involved. And in order to counter that, the main character will have to choose an assistant, that is, a character.

Anyway, the main character who returned to Silvernia resumes his detective work. If you look at the gameplay trailer, you can see him looking at the list of wanted criminals, tracking them down, and then scanning for targets in the vicinity. If you find a target that 100% matches the characteristics written on the wanted poster, you can attack first, and immediately move on to the battle phase.

This composition feels similar to subculture open worlds based in cities like 'I Hwan'. In 'I Hwan', monsters don't suddenly pop out in the middle of the city, but sudden situations occur when you receive a request to investigate a specific anomaly or pass through an unusual spot in the city. Of course, the production companies are different and the occupations of the two works' main characters are slightly different, but the work of investigating the city's anomalies is similar, so the tone may be similar. Above all, implementing a field where monsters openly roam in the middle of people's lives is not in line with plausibility and may undermine immersion.

So, as shown in this gameplay trailer, I expect that they will identify and hunt werewolves hiding among people, or that secret organizations will occupy some sections at night and fights will break out in those areas. There were scenes where the main character detective subdued a suspicious masked member from behind and interrogated him, and in the middle of that, he suddenly fought with those members in the middle of the city.

That scene is shocking, but I'll explain the battle system and other operating systems in more detail later, but anyway, I think the 'Cinderella' that appears at the end explains the main enemies you'll encounter in this 'Silver Palace' well. Werewolves and mysterious members of the organization didn't have much impact, but suddenly twisting the fairy tale created an impact. And I have a feeling that I can guess who the enemies I will face are.

When I first saw the PV, I actually thought, could it be Cinderella? The fact that the girl who was with the main character was wearing rags, the fact that she kept showing the carriage intentionally, and the scene where the burning carriage comes out with the line that she will end everything that night after 12 o'clock. And in the gameplay, they showed it as 'Cinderella' to confirm the kill. Of course, that 'Cinderella' is a completely different impression from the Cinderella we know. She's wearing something like glass shoes, but she's burning as if she's going to turn everything into ashes, as if showing the origin of the name 'Cinderella'.

Even more shocking was the QTE production of Cinderella stomping on the main character. There have been no cases of inserting such violent productions in the middle of subculture games, but 'Silver Palace' uniquely captured this part quite realistically and in detail. Not only that. Prior to the boss battle, the main character detective tried to subdue the enemy by strangling them from behind, and there was also a scene where they struggled with each other in a mounted position and stuck an anesthetic injection into the nape of their neck. And one of the playable characters showed a finisher that struck the enemy's face in a groggy state with their knee and then turned around and stuck an injection into the nape of their neck.

In fact, it is not uncommon for the main character, who is the user's alter ego, to be treated harshly in subculture games. In Blue Archive, the teacher has bullet holes in his stomach, and the commander of Girls' Frontline has suffered so much that there is not enough space to write it all down. In Girls' Frontline 2, he was caught by Varyagdan and beaten. However, it is only described, and the process of being treated harshly or doing harsh things is not produced in detail. However, 'Silver Palace' presented this game's unique 'color' from the beginning by showing these scenes. The cruel battle hidden behind the romantic city, and the theme of distorted fairy tales, are imprinted right away with just that scene, even without prior knowledge.

Looking at the battle part from the UI first, there is no big difference from the subculture open-world RPGs of the past. This is because it is a UI that reminds you of fighting while switching between 4 characters from time to time. The only slight difference is that in most subculture open-world RPGs, the keys for special skills are assigned to the keyboard, but in 'Silver Palace', the special skill is assigned to the right click. And after attacking with what is presumed to be a special skill, there is no separate cooldown, but instead you can see the special gauges next to the health bar decreasing.

The way to use that gauge also seems to be different for each character. The main character consumes a certain amount of space every time he shoots a revolver, but the second party member character with a shield and the fourth character wearing a doctor's gown and carrying a clockwork heart on his back consumed all the gauge to push the enemy with the shield or blow away the surrounding enemies. The reason why they adopted the gauge method instead of the cooldown method familiar to users is probably because there are more cases where special skills are used several times like the main character. It's easier to check how many more times you can use special skills than having the number written on the icon.

Evasion is assigned to the shift key, but the gameplay screen doesn't show much evasion. It probably means dodging attacks by taking a short step to the side, and since it seems to lead to a roll after that step, there will be a difference such as rolling if you press it twice in a row or hold it down. And if you look closely, you can see that the frequency of parrying is unusually high rather than evasion. However, you can't parry all attacks, and it seems that only attacks that shine with yellow concentric circles among the enemy's attacks can be parried.

You might think of 'Mingjo' in this way, but Silver Palace's parrying is different from Mingjo. Mingjo has parry judgment only on a few attacks such as a few normal attacks, aerial attacks, and variation skills, so continuous parrying is quite difficult, but 'Silver Palace' showed the appearance of parrying all of the enemy's wave attacks. So, I think that parrying is probably done by attacking normally in time with the enemy's attack timing, like in fighting games or games like 'Naraka'.

However, in 'Mingjo', if you parry, the allies maintain their attack posture and can unilaterally hit the dazed enemy, but in 'Silver Palace', the allies are also slightly bounced off, making it difficult to hit the attack immediately. In other words, parrying is relatively easy and frequent, so it is relatively easy to make them groggy, but the return is also small. In addition, since evasion is also a roll, the judgment is probably not as good as the evasion of other subculture action games, so this design seems to compensate for this with parrying. Since the sequence leading from groggy to finisher is also used for general enemies, I think this part was probably designed with that intention.

Another difference from other games is that if you switch, the character who is switched in can perform a special attack. Of course, if you look at 'Zenless Zone Zero', the character who is switched in sometimes performs an exchange attack in some situations, but in 'Silver Palace', even if you switch without any specific indication, the character performed a whirlwind attack or an attack that seemed to grind the enemy by operating a chainsaw that they didn't normally do. There are also scenes where they come out right away and connect to a finisher, so I expect that there will be a separate technique for this part, or that if you press a normal attack as soon as you switch, it will connect to a special attack.

The exact size of Silvernia, the main background of the work, has not been revealed, but it seems to be larger than the cities of subculture games currently in live service. Since it includes not only daily functions but also battles and various events, the area will naturally have to be that much larger.

Among the objects mentioned earlier, the red public telephone box seems to be a device like a warp point. There is a scene where the public telephone box is briefly shown during a night street battle, and there is an X mark on it at that time. Since that mark appears in a scene where you stun an enemy to find something and then fight similar enemies, you can assume that the warp was intentionally blocked during an important story battle.

Since the appearance of taking a warp like that is similar to other games, they didn't show it as much as possible this time, but instead you can often see them moving around on vehicles. If you look at the item window, there are also purple and yellow grade vehicles, and how to acquire them is also a key point. If you look more closely, there is also a scene of repairing horseshoes, and what kind of resources are used for this repair and how often you have to repair them after running is also something to look into in the future.

In addition to running like that, there is also a scene of spreading wings on a horse and roaming the city, and if you look at the fact that they don't fly directly from the ground road and deliberately go up to the rooftop to use it, it seems to be an evolved version of 'gliding'. Usually 'gliding' uses stamina or a separate gauge, but this time, if you look at the fact that they fly around without that, it seems that they intentionally excluded it to further enhance the convenience of movement. And if you look at the fact that they use ziplines and grappling hooks in the process of going up to the rooftop like that, there is a high possibility that they will not support wall climbing. Instead of reducing that freedom to some extent, it can be seen as a variation by increasing the freedom of gliding and running to roam the vast city and find hidden points.

Looking at the daily life part of 'Silvernia', the city you'll be walking around in, the main character's office is the first thing that catches your eye. The size of the room is quite large, and since the maid Alf is also assigned there, I guess there will be a customization function later. If you pass through the door of the office and take the elevator down, you can see a bulletin board with various request information in the lobby.

After processing a request and running through the city, the main character enters a cafe and makes contact with the red rose dancer. Before that, he looks at the market price of the cafe building and the Les building in front of it, and buys the building right away. After buying the building like that, you can place assistants in the building and earn resources at regular intervals. Since the upper limit is set, recovering it before it is full also seems to be a major routine of 'Silver Palace'. Usually in games like this, you can secure buff food by eating at restaurants or cooking it yourself, but this part has not been illuminated yet, so I couldn't confirm it. In addition, equipment farming and other core elements have not been revealed, but since they are currently starting pre-registration, I think this part will be revealed through testing or other opportunities after a little more time.

Somehow the analysis of Silver Palace has become quite long, but 'Silver Palace' was that amazing. I've been surprised to see the development of subculture games in recent years, but this time, they showed overwhelming visuals from the beginning by laying out ray tracing. In particular, the appearance of the city reflected on the water, the delicate light effects throughout the city, and the transparent expression of the eyes are still lingering in my eyes.

In addition, it is also noticeable that they paid attention to the Victorian era, which subculture open-world games have not paid attention to. In fact, this material is a romance itself for gamers. On top of that, I personally got excited again by the statement that people suddenly turn into wolves, or that making the skin black is not a trivial matter, but something terrible that is hard to believe. It reminded me of the beast disease of 'Bloodborne' and the fossil disease of 'Lies of P'.

And in the data released with the video, there is a new material called 'Silvernium', and it is common for these types of games that things go wrong because they underestimate the danger of such materials. I think I've gone too far, but this is also proof that the darkness hidden in the glamorous Victorian or Belle Epoque city is a good material that can cause gamers' imaginations to run wild like this.

However, no matter how much I think about it, Silver Palace doesn't seem like a game that will come out soon. First of all, optimization is on my mind. Even if you look at the PV and the gameplay trailer right now, frame drops occur frequently in the battle scenes. Considering that these trailers usually pick out the best ones to show to appeal to users, it probably won't run as well as this gameplay trailer in most environments. Since it's like this on PC, there's no need to mention mobile.

Even if you turn off ray tracing and play, the optimization issue will need to be verified one more time. The developers are different, but I experienced the problem properly once in the CBT of 'I Hwan', which was made with Unreal Engine 5. If the object density is high and the field scale becomes vast enough to implement the city as it is, it means that there is a lot to process.

This part will probably be the key to success for next-generation subculture open-world games set in cities. Like the saying that even if you have three measures of beads, you have to string them together to make a treasure, you can only impress users if you can enjoy good-looking graphics, satisfying combat, and in-depth systems without any obstacles with pleasant gameplay. If that is not supported, 'Silver Palace' has a high risk of quickly losing interest because the parrying frequency is also high.

In addition, the game company must properly show its capabilities, such as a story that brings out the charm of the characters and worldview, events that can arouse interest and earn rewards in the middle, and stable updates and operations. Otherwise, it is impossible to survive in the red ocean that is the world of subculture open world.

One thing is certain, 'Silver Palace' delivered an impact that was not inferior to the next-generation open-world competitors. No, because they adopted different materials and uninhibited productions from them, there is a possibility that it will lead to coexistence rather than competition. Furthermore, the unconventional violent productions that have not been dealt with in subculture may have a big impact on other works. The scenes where the main character rolls or uses violence in such an unrefined way have only been shown in a descriptive way due to technical problems, but this time, they just broke the mold and showed new possibilities. I'm looking forward to seeing when I can break through the barrier of reality called optimization and enjoy that unconventionality, and what the future holds for 'Silver Palace'.

Webzine InvenReporter Yoon Seo-ho
2025-05-14