City of Brass (video game)

Lore & Background

City of Brass was developed by Australian independent studio Uppercut Games, whose members previously worked on BioShock and BioShock 2 while at 2K Australia. The team cited this as an influence in the development of the combination of gameplay genres. The developers stated they wanted to try procedural generation after finding hand-crafting every detail resource intensive for their previous game Submerged. Designer Ed Orman claimed procedural generation allowed a higher degree of polish to be applied to modular environmental pieces, which were then combined to produce a variety of original level designs.

Reader's Guide

City of Brass is notable for its procedural generation system, which generates a believable and playable environment from a single seed at run time using a heavily modified version of the Dungeon Architect plug-in for Unreal Engine 4. The developers enhanced this by walking around the perimeter of each generated level to improve layout and playability. Gameplay centers on a thief wielding a scimitar and a whip, with the whip used to grab objects, trip, disarm or stun enemies, shatter barricades, trigger traps and switches, and swing. Players must navigate levels within a time limit, with permanent death requiring a restart on each playthrough. The game received mixed reviews: Destructoid and PC Gamer praised the whip mechanics, while IGN gave it a 4 out of 10 for being maddeningly difficult. GameSpot noted performance issues but praised the balance between pacing, difficulty, and combat. PCWorld called it forgettable but functional.

Did You Know?

• Death is permanent; players must start the game again on each playthrough.
• The developers released 10 updates during Early Access adding new environments, enemies, weapons, and relics.
• Designer Ed Orman and artist Andrew James gave a talk at GCAP 2017 titled 'Procedural Generation in City of Brass.'

Combat & the Art of the Whip

City of Brass casts players as a lone thief navigating a procedurally generated Arabian Nights metropolis of corridors, courtyards, and chambers. The core combat loop revolves around a dual-wield setup: a scimitar in the right hand for slashing, and a whip in the left that serves as a remarkably versatile tool. The whip can grab distant objects, trip or stun foes, shatter barricades, activate hidden switches, and even let the player swing across gaps. What elevates the system beyond simple button-mashing is the developers' emphasis on combining mechanics in creative sequences—stunning an enemy with the whip before finishing them with the blade, sliding into a guard to shove them into a spike pit, or luring one creature close enough that its own attack obliterates nearby allies. Every level operates under a strict time limit, and any environmental object, from a loose brick to a decorative vase, can be snatched up and hurled as an improvised weapon. Death is permanent, so each run demands both speed and adaptability. Since entering Early Access, the studio has shipped ten updates that introduced new enemies, relics, weapons, and environments while fine-tuning difficulty based on player feedback.

Procedural Generation & Studio Heritage

Uppercut Games, the Australian independent studio behind City of Brass, carries DNA from a notable predecessor: several team members previously contributed to BioShock and BioShock 2 while at 2K Australia. They openly credit that experience as shaping the genre-blending ambition of their own title. The decision to pursue procedural generation was born partly out of frustration. After completing Submerged, a project in which every corner and passage had to be hand-built, the team found the approach too resource-heavy and wanted a more scalable method. Designer Ed Orman explained that generating levels algorithmically let them invest more polish into individual modular pieces—walls, archways, decorative elements—which the engine then recombines into fresh layouts each run. The technical backbone is a heavily modified version of the Dungeon Architect plug-in for Unreal Engine 4. Orman and artist Andrew James presented their pipeline at GCAP 2017, describing a goal of producing a believable, playable environment from a single seed at runtime, with the engine merely manipulating pre-built components. They also described a manual pass, walking around the perimeter of each generated level, to fix awkward layouts and improve playability before the player ever sees the result.

Release Timeline & Platform Rollout

City of Brass was officially announced on 6 July 2017, with plans for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The PC build reached players first, launching on Steam's Early Access program on 18 September 2017—just over two months after the announcement. This early window allowed the team to iterate publicly: over the following months they pushed ten separate updates, each adding new environments, enemy types, weapons, and collectible relics while adjusting balance in response to community feedback. The PlayStation 4 edition arrived on 4 May 2018, and the Xbox One version followed in the same general timeframe. The staggered rollout meant that the PC community served as a living testbed, with their suggestions directly shaping the content and tuning that console players eventually received. The game's single-player, first-person dungeon-crawl structure—where a thief races through a mythical city of interconnecting rooms to claim a hidden treasure—remained consistent across all platforms, though the Early Access period ensured that the final console builds benefited from a full cycle of community-driven refinement.

Critical Reception & the Difficulty Debate

Metacritic tallies place City of Brass in the mid-range across all three platforms: 69 out of 100 on PC, 67 on Xbox One, and 66 on PlayStation 4. Reviews were notably split. Destructoid and PC Gamer both singled out the whip as a standout mechanic, praising its versatility and the visual flair of the overall presentation. Rolling Stone, writing before the full release, offered broadly positive remarks. GameSpot delivered a middling assessment, acknowledging an impressive balance between pacing, difficulty curve, and combat systems while flagging performance stumbles. IGN took the harshest line, scoring it a four out of ten and describing the experience as maddeningly difficult and repetitious. PCWorld called it functional but ultimately forgettable. The recurring tension in the reviews centers on difficulty: the permadeath structure and time limits create a punishing loop that some players found exhilarating and others found frustrating. The whip, however, emerged as the most consistently praised element, with multiple outlets crediting it for giving the combat a distinctive, tactile identity that set City of Brass apart from more conventional dungeon crawlers.

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