More Than Meets The Eye: Rebel Engine Interview at PAX West

Rebel Engine is an upcoming game developed by Seven Leaf Clover and published by Wandering Wizard that combines dynamic movement, colorful first-person action, and hack-and-slash mechanics into a cohesive package. We interviewed the developers on the floor at PAX West 2025 and tried out the game’s Arena Mode. 

I’m curious – what’s the elevator pitch? 

So the elevator pitch is: if you’ve ever played Devil May Cry or any old classic character action games like God of War, it is kind of like those but in first person. So it’s mostly focused on a solid melee combat system with a little bit of usage of your weapons as tools, other than just weapon damage. 

That’s really cool. It looks like there’s a pretty big variety of weapons. I think I see all sorts of arms. 

Yeah, you can change your arms. So, here’s the thing: you have four main weapons which are on your left hand. These are not the main focus. The main focus is your right hand, which is your melee. You have a claw, which is used for punching, grabbing, and throwing. Not only enemies – but you can just grab and throw some objects like boxes. You also have swords and you have a chainsaw. We might be working on something a little bit extra.  

I’m curious what’s down the pipeline. It seems like the game has a really interesting aesthetic. Some of the weapons and swords almost look scrapped together in a way. 

That’s because you are playing as a robot that has been basically tortured for years. And now he is rebelling against the system – against the world that put him in this situation, leading a whole new rebellion with the help of a little virus that yours truly is voicing. 

Oh, that’s amazing. Can we expect a pretty extensive campaign? 

We have a main campaign and then we have a few extra modes like an arena mode and a boss rush, but the main thing is definitely the campaign. It’s going to be around 10 levels, so it’ll be pretty lengthy. We are mostly focusing on quality over quantity so we’re looking at around a 7-8 hour campaign.

There’s additional playtime because all of the levels have their own ranking. If you want to get a better ranking, you can replay the whole level. You can speedrun them if you want, because we have timers for that. And then there’s the extra mode where you can just fight in specific arenas or go through the boss rush where you fight all of the bosses from the main campaign. 

 

Oh, that’s exciting. So what kind of arenas can we expect? Are there different parameters? Or how do they work? 

Right now we’re focusing on one arena separated into multiple modules because it’s a bit of a ring, like a hexagon. Each little divot can rise and lower to give you different arena combinations. We are definitely looking into custom arenas – they’re not going to be in the initial release. But if things go well and people like the arena a lot, we might be able to make those a thing. 

You mentioned the initial release – do you plan on continuing to update assets and arenas over time? 

There will be weekly arenas. 

Okay, that’s cool. It seems like there are all sorts of different parameters, so it seems like it’s meant to keep you on your toes.

Yeah, definitely. 

Anything with solid scoreplay should have levels that can be played over and over again. 

So it’s really interesting that you mention that. Despite the levels being linear, there are quite a few things to find. I did mention earlier that it was quality over quantity. And yeah, each level has a lot of little details hidden around each corner. So players that really care about the lore or just want to explore a little, they can find a lot of little nuggets and information.

So like environmental storytelling. 

Absolutely. In fact, there are quite a few little events where you can find a few NPCs scattered around and there is a little dialogue box around them. If you approach them and not attack them, they will actually start talking. You can eavesdrop on their conversation and either listen to a fun gag or just learn about the world and the level that you’re currently in. So you can start piecing things together by yourself, finding secret areas, and hear the banter between the main protagonist and his virus friend. 

 

I actually didn’t realize there’s so much in the world. 

It might not have been the main focus, but it’s definitely one of the bigger parts of the game. We do want to make these characters stand out and be remembered. That’s why we put so much effort into the characterization of each of these characters, of the villains that you fight, the enemies. And the overall story. 

I’m looking forward to seeing which kinds of different enemies will show up. Are they predominantly robots? 

Without going too much into spoiler territory, most of the enemies that you’ll fight are definitely robots. But the variety that they have, what kind of job they have – this is sort of a futuristic society where every single robot has their use. You have what are called the Oppressors, which are the security detail. They carry the security shotgun, one of the guns that you steal. They chase you around. And there are worse versions of them which are tanks called the Suppressors, which forego weapons and just punch you. The problem is that they have the highest health values and armor. So they are a threat even if they have to get close to you. 

Are you expected to change your arms to handle tank robots like that too? 

You can. With your main weapon — the loading claw — you have the ability to grab enemies. And while you grab enemies, you can have your virus friend hack them to force them to fire their weapons. So right now, the one on-screen has a sniper rifle. So you can grab him and use the sniper rifle while you also have your own sniper rifle. Or just use any of the other weapons. 

I imagine those combinations take some balancing. 

Yeah, that balancing took a lot of time. I know the game designer took a lot of the little different things that you can do with each weapon combination and had to tweak numbers around, see what works, what doesn’t. But more often than not, we had a base for what the enemies were meant to be like and then tweak the weapons around them. 

 

I’d love to give the game a shot really quick. I’m just so curious about it. Oh yeah – do you have a projected release window? 

We’re aiming for late this year. That’s the objective – 2025. 

Regarding the UI, what’s the yellow section in the middle? 

That’s your armor. It will protect you from the bullets that you are taking. And it prevents you from being pushed around by the enemies because as I said before, you’re stealing the weapons from the other enemies. So they are shooting you with your same arsenal. One of the weapons shoots enemies upwards. So if you don’t have armor, you will be shot upwards, too. The way to heal that armor is by meleeing them. If you punch them, you should be getting health back. But that’s also a resource that you have to build up. So you have to use your weapons too. 

A little bit of risk and reward, right? 

Exactly. But basically, the game rewards you for switching things up by refilling resources. For example, your weapons reload if you switch to the other one. You shot the shotgun and recovered the bullet because you switched to the other weapon. You will be going through combat encounter to combat encounter, and every so often you’ll have a bit of lore. And then just boss fights. 

This movement feels pretty fluid. It’s really fascinating.

It’s one of the first things we focused on. Movement is definitely one of the most important elements of the game. So dashing, jumping, and stomping – keeping on the move is important. Because if it’s not fun to move your character, it’s not going to be a fun game in general. 

Since it’s focused mostly on movement and not so much precision, you have stuff like auto-aim. So you might have noticed that your crosshair moves around because it’s aiming at the closest enemy. It’s an option that you can disable if you want to be precise, of course. But for the general public, we want it to be enabled by default. Because this game is not a game about precision. It’s a game about making combos and juggling your enemies and being stylish – just like its inspirations. 

I’m a little curious about this style gauge in the upper right. 

I’ll explain it to you real quick. The top right is showing you your current style and your super meter. Right now it’s warning you that you’re using a stale attack – it’ll punish you for spamming attacks. But if you keep switching things up, you will always be getting more points and increasing your super meter. If you bump up that meter high enough, you can use special attacks that increase your style, too. 

Does it benefit scoring? 

It helps a lot with scoring. Because if you start taking health damage, you lose score and you lose a lot of your style. So armor is extremely important. If you take damage while having armor, you will not lose either style or points. So that’s a protection – not only against attacks but your points. 

This is a separate build that immediately throws you into the action. The game will ease you into these mechanics. It will teach you at its own pace, so you don’t have to worry about being overwhelmed at frame one. 

Thank you for your time – we really appreciate it. 

 

Rebel Engine is slated for release later in 2025. Check out the demo on Steam, and check out Wandering Wizard’s games!