Fading Echo makes a splash on PlayStation 5 today

Hi PlayStation players! This is Sylvain from Emeteria, a New Tales studio, the team behind Fading Echo, and we’re excited to share that our fast-paced elemental action-adventure RPG is launching today on PlayStation 5.

In Fading Echo, you play as One, a young Legend fighting to save Corel, a fractured world being consumed by a mysterious force known as the Paradox. To survive, you’ll experiment with One’s powers, manipulate the elements around you, and shift between realities to find new ways through combat, exploration, and puzzles.

So, let’s dive in!

Become water – then weaponize it

Water – or Æther, as it’s known in the world of Fading Echo – is at the heart of One’s abilities. She can manipulate it, use it against enemies, and even transform herself into a living blob of it.

One of our goals with Æther form was to make movement itself part of your toolbox. As a blob, you can build momentum, surf through pipes, squeeze through narrow cracks, and launch yourself across the environment. This can help you reach new areas and solve environmental puzzles, but it can be just as useful in combat. Get above an enemy, for example, and you can water-bomb them on the way down, making quite a splash. It’s as effective as it is fun.

And movement is only the first ripple.

One can also unleash waves of Æther and powerful charged blasts, drenching enemies and changing the state of the battlefield. But drenching an enemy is just the beginning: Æther reacts with elements such as lava, toxic waste, and even Paradox corruption, opening up all kinds of possibilities.

Drench an enemy before conducting energy through them. Solidify elements to change the battlefield. Or look to your surroundings and set off a chain reaction that turns the situation in your favor.

We designed these systems to reward experimentation rather than push you toward a single sequence of attacks. When you enter an encounter, we want you to look at the enemies, the environment, and the elements at your disposal and ask yourself: What happens if I try this?

Sometimes everything will flow according to plan. Sometimes you’ll find a solution we didn’t see coming.

There’s rarely just One answer.

Bend reality to find another way

Corel is no longer one stable world. The Paradox has fractured it into alternate realities, and One can shift between different versions of the same space – and even different versions of herself.

Reality shifting is another system we wanted players to use across exploration, puzzles, and combat rather than for one specific purpose.

A path blocked in one reality might be accessible in another. An element you need to solve a puzzle could exist on the other side of a shift. Sometimes, instead of looking for another route through the space in front of you, you’ll need to think about what that same space looks like in another reality.

Combat follows the same principle. Shifting can change the rencounter can play out differently depending on where you choose to fight

For us, Æther, movement, elemental reactions, puzzles, and reality shifting are all parts of the same toolbox. We want you to learn how each system works, then start combining them and finding your own solutions.

Explore a world consumed by the Paradox

Of course, One has bigger problems than finding increasingly creative ways to deal with enemies.

Paradox Corruption is spreading across Corel, twisting reality and consuming what remains of the world. At its center is Maddock, the ruthless leader of the Paradox on Corel, who stands in the way of One’s attempt to save it.

Your journey will take you across floating islands and fractured realities as you search for a way to stop the corruption before there’s nothing left to save.

And while Fading Echo is a single-player adventure, One won’t make that journey entirely alone.

Across Corel, you’ll meet a small group of unlikely allies. Some stand beside One out of loyalty, others out of guilt, and some because they have nowhere else left to go. Each has their own relationship with this decaying world, and with One herself.

But One’s journey isn’t only about saving Corel. It’s also about discovering who she is, uncovering the mysteries of her past, and finding the answers she’ll need to save her future.

We’ve built Fading Echo around experimentation and giving you the freedom to find your own way through its world. If you’d like to get a first taste before jumping into the full adventure, a demo is also available today on PlayStation 5. 

Now it’s time to dive in, PlayStation 5 players! Fading Echo is yours, and we can’t wait to see how you make your way through Corel.