Ordinary Oddness, a new “Nothing-Stays-Oddinary Open-World RPG” from Tencent, reveals a 22-minute announcement trailer.
Ordinary Oddness Welcomes Players to Elysian Skies
“Nothing-Stays-Oddinary” Open-World RPG
Tencent reveals their newest title, Ordinary Oddness, a “Nothing-Stays-Oddinary” open-world RPG through a 22-minute reveal trailer showcasing its whimsical world and action-packed gameplay. In Ordinary Oddness, logic is suspended and urban legends and fantasy creatures known as Mythoids come to life in the city of Elysian Skies—”strange is simply common sense.” While a release date has yet to be announced, pre-registrations are now open on its official website.
Players take on the role of a Consulting Investigator (Investigator for brevity) of the Mythoids Investigation Agency (MIA) and take on commissions from humans and Mythoids. It begins mundane and ordinary, but there is nothing truly ordinary in Elysian Skies as the hidden secrets and the darkness seep out from the shadows, painting that not everything is as good as it seems to be.
The trailer is a sneak peek into the one of the many chapters or “case files” of the game’s main story, and it opens to what appears to be a promotional video narrated by a flamboyant individual with a hand for a head named Yeahman showing the glitz and glamour of Elysian Skies, “the greatest city ever.” The Mythoid Day celebration, a day commemorating the peaceful coexistence of humankind and the Mythoids, is coming up soon. But of course, not everything is as it seems. The festivities are stopped by a villainous girl named Luminar, who turned almost all of the citizens into giant gummy people through candy she managed to distribute—and someone who seems to have some sort of history with the mysterious protagonist, deeper than just mere friends.
Layered Combat Makes Battles More Engaging
Ordinary Oddness said in their official website that the game “focuses on rethinking how combat mechanics interact, delivering a dynamic system built around player choice.” The player’s combat style is made up of seamless action sequences, chained together using blocks, dodges, the switching of characters, and QTEs. Relative to that, bosses and enemies also have their own unique combat styles, all of them tied to their personal storyline and appearance, creating a battlefield with ever-shifting rules. Players must learn to adapt on the fly.
In the trailer, we see the Investigator and his team battle against a boss called Annie and Her Friends, taking in perfectly-timed blocks, dodges, and skills to take down foes. Gamers familiar with games like Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, Silver Palace, Arknights: Endfield, and the like, will find themselves familiar with its combat to a degree and may feel right at home, although Ordinary Oddness appears to have more of a focus on action than their contemporaries. Later on, he also takes on The Nightingale Girls in another thrilling snippet of battle.
The Consulting Investigator Was a Past Criminal
The trailer dives a little deeper than a usual introduction to a new game, showcasing not only visuals, exploration mechanics, and its combat system, but also places the lore in center stage, already planting the seeds for theorists and sleuths to piece together. Ten minutes in, the connection between Luminar and the protagonist is revealed, albeit in a vague manner. They were both victims of the Nightingale Theater incident, and were close enough (or, perhaps blood-related) for Luminar to call him “Big Brother.” The idea of being a criminal or something adjacent to it also stems from Luminar calling him accusing him of leaving “this” life behind and having “gone legit,” turning into the lapdog of someone named Goodman.
And the most incriminating detail—”But who remembers that the so-called victim…was actually the one behind the massacre?” It is also odd that Luminar says, word for word, that the Investigator is the “only survivor” of the incident, yet here she is in flesh, and so is Arabella, who has also been noted as a victim. They are both alive and well—but in a world where nothing is ordinary and almost anything can happen, their existence is an anomaly in itself.
After chasing Luminar down a reimagined anomaly reminiscent of the Nightingale Theater, he finally manages to defeat her in one final showdown, or what was supposedly the final showdown. Luminar turns the tables at the end, immobilizing the Investigator and seemed to have taken the victory. However, one sentence—”Let go of me”—shatters the dream-like sequence and snaps him back to reality, to what appears to be the beginning of the Mythoid Day celebrations. The trailer concludes with a doll version of Luminar, further muddling the waters and leaving eager players with a cliffhanger.
Source:
Ordinary Oddness EN
