Synduality: Echo of Ada is a third-person mech extraction shooter from publisher Bandai Namco and developer Game Studio Inc. The extraction shooter releases on January 23, 2025, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC for $40 for the standard version. Ahead of the full launch, I got to go to Bandai Namco, experience the early hours and missions of Synduality: Echo of Ada, and speak with some of the developers to learn more.
Extraction shooter meets mech action in Synduality: Echo of Ada
Synduality: Echo of Ada takes place in a distant, dystopian future, where acid rain is commonplace, and the remaining people have to scavenge to survive. That scavenging is done via Cradlecoffins, special mechs that are piloted with help from Magus, a humanoid AI with their own personality. The game is part of a larger universe that also includes manga, and an anime called Synduality: Noir, which has already aired its first season. While all of these properties exist in the same world, they take place in different time periods, so don’t expect too much overlap outside of cosmetics available in the game.
The short-term loop for Synduality: Echo of Ada has you heading out into a large open space, where up to 24 total players can be in a single instance. You need to collect resources, including crystals worth money, and materials for upgrading your base. During these excursions you will also have missions from various factions to complete, offering new weapons and mech parts for completing them. Once you have a full bag, you need to find an elevator to escape, before the monsters, bandits, or other players can take you down.
During these excursions, your Cradlecoffin has a limited battery, with most of the mechs I used in the preview having between 20 to 30 minutes of juice. That said, I never came close to running out, as I reached max carry capacity much earlier and needed to quickly extract. Producer Yosuke Futami told me that as you advance further and further into Synduality: Echo of Ada, you’ll be able to carry more and more, making that limited battery time a much bigger factor. Despite exploring the open world in a massive and mobile mech, the large environment still made exploring feel dangerous and slow. I had to be fully aware of my ammo, health, and where the nearest elevator was at all times, otherwise I could die and lose everything I had on me.
While that’s the short-term loop, the long-term rewards are focused on upgrading your base, where you and your Magus spend time between missions. There are repairs to complete, which increase crafting capabilities, storage capacity, and quality of weapons and parts. You also unlock new customization options for your Magus, which has a full character creator as well. In the preview, I was able to see both unlockable cosmetics and premium cosmetics, which came from a battle pass and in-game store.
In terms of content, I was told that it could take up to 200 hours of gameplay to finish a single faction’s missions, with multiple factions in the game. On top of that, there are seasonal leaderboards for getting the highest bounty, which can be increased by killing other players, and for claiming the highest bounty from these players. They also implied there would be new content with new seasons, but couldn’t give specifics outside of a leaderboard reset and a new battle pass.
There is also a set of single-player missions where you use predetermined loadouts to explore small areas. You run through small missions, collecting data logs that provide info about the fall of a human city through the eyes of a pilot and his Magus Ada. These missions only provide story as rewards, which Futami told me was to avoid offering items that aren’t stored online, which could be abused by potential cheaters. Futami also said that the game will launch without cross-play to avoid issues between console and PC players, but that it could be added later down the road.
The story and tutorial missions for multiplayer offered a look at the personality of Synduality: Echo of Ada, which has a punk aesthetic for its dystopian future and can be silly at times. Tutorial videos look like old-timey cartoons and your home base has a very funky soundtrack playing at all times. Some of the logs from the single-player are much more serious, but I appreciated the light tone that was present most of the time.
Ultimately, I’m not sure Synduality: Echo of Ada offers anything unique enough in the extraction shooter space to draw in players who don’t enjoy that gameplay loop, but the focus on mechs and a lack of hyper-realism offers a nice change of pace from the big games in the genre. Based on my time with the first three single-player missions, I can’t recommend Synduality: Echo of Ada unless you find the multiplayer extraction aspect appealing, because it is clearly the star of the show here.
Synduality: Echo of Ada launches on January 23, 2025, on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC for $40. You can also get seven days of early access if you get either the deluxe or ultimate edition, which cost $70 and $100 respectively.
