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Sunset Overdrive debuts gameplay footage

Witness Xbox One's sillier, brighter answer to inFamous.

Insomniac's upcoming Xbox One-exclusive parkour shooter Sunset Overdrive has revealed its first gameplay footage.

Watch on YouTube

Set in 2027, Insomniac's follow-up to Ratchet & Clank and Resistance looks a bit like Jet Set Radio and Crackdown met up with Saints Row at a pub, got smashed, and decided to make a game. There's the typical open-world platforming parkour we've seen in games like inFamous, but there's some neat touches like inventive respawn animations where you get deposited from a flying saucer, tossed out of a van, or rise from a crypt before doing a goofy mummy impersonation. Sometimes it's the little things.

Like Ratchet & Clank before it, Sunset Overdrive will feature some truly astonishing weapons like a bowling ball cannon, or guns that shoot LPs, roman candles or teddy bears strapped to sticks of dynamite (we're not convinced that the teddy bear serves any practical purpose here, but it adds character). There will also be a magic system, but these tornado and explosion-summoning powers are called "amps" to make them edgier and more in line with the contemporary setting.

For more information on Sunset Overdrive, Eurogamer contributor Stace Harman just went hands on with it. "Sunset Overdrive has nailed its basic mechanics," he wrote in his preview, where he noted that he couldn't exit Insomniac's office without thinking of how to string parkour tricks together. "Sunset Overdrive is on track to be that sort of game," he concluded.