SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada | Review

January 22, 2025

Bandai Namco has delivered a rather diverse portfolio of games lately. After all, their IPs range from classics like Pac-Man, all the way to the recent Elden Ring. It’s time for them to tackle an anime-inspired extraction shooter, with that PvPvE action that all fans of the genre love. The name is SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada, and we checked it out on Xbox Series X – let’s see how that went!

One of the current trends in gaming seems to be extraction shooters – and, frankly, it seems to me that a lot of gaming execs have been misled. You see, when PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (or PUBG) exploded in popularity, every publisher on Earth realized they need to have a battle royale pronto. Publishers seemingly have seen the popularity of extraction shooters like Escape From Tarkov this time, even the likes of Activision, Blizzard and Bandai Namco. Everyone felt that such a game or game mode is the obvious path to success.

But these games’ success and virality is a fraction of the behemoth that battle royale was (and still is, looking at the numbers Fortnite, Warzone, Apex Legends, etc. still register), thus seeing so many games try and tap that market seems… frankly, misguided. When not even Call of Duty’s own extraction shooter module, DMZ, managed to be a breakout success, maybe it’s time to reconsider. There are severe doubts over the viability of Bungie’s Marathon, which at this point will arrive years late to the party. And then there’s the game we’re currently reviewing; Bandai Namco’s very own SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada. It’s an anime-inspired romp, to the point that there’s even an official anime of the game – one that, ironically, has more plot and lore than the actual game. But presentations aside, it’s an extraction shooter – a formula that isn’t for everyone, but one with plenty of interesting facets. It releases on the 24th of January officially, but buying one of the expensive pre-orders you could start playing a week early. Of course, we were there!

Touch toxic grass

To its merit, this game tries its best to be somewhat different from the other titles in the genre, thanks to its anime-inspired mecha spin. They’re called Cradles here, but they’re mechas, alright? The extraction shooter basics are all there: players, either solo or in a team, leave the underground area and enter a big open zone where several other AI-controlled foes and other players alike roam. You see, in the game’s lore, humanity was nearly wiped by dangerous creatures that appeared on the surface of the planet and, as such, a community built a sprawling underground city to survive – finding materials outside, from time to time, is crucial. But with even rain being of the acid kind, the dangers on the surface are many, hence players need to go out in well-equipped mechs. And moving around these machines is quite fun: they’re quite snappy, feature 2 weapons and even an ultimate attack, and feature jets that allow them to jump, or slide away to a much needed escape route. It’s all quite grounded and not that impressive of a gameplay loop perhaps, but it gets the job done.

Each player’s objective is to find stuff – be it crystals for currency, generic loot to sell off or specific materials and items needed for quests or crafting. AI opponents, ranging from hostile creatures to actual bandit Cradles, will pretty much always attack us, but actual players can do whatever they want. You can attack unsuspecting foragers, form strategic alliances, or even just play it peacefully. Surviving is key, because everything you loot has to be extracted within a time limit – this limit, being the robot’s own battery, ranging usually from 20 to 30 minutes. Before the time runs out, players need to find one of the available elevators to go back underground, saving your very gear and everything you scavenged in the process. Before the time runs out, chances are your ammo will be sparse, or your inventory will be rather full, impacting your very mobility – at that point, it’s time to go. There’s even a cool report at the end of the extraction, regardless of its success or failure, that shows on a 2D map where exactly the player(s) went, what situations they encountered, what zones they explored. It’s a fun way to put a pin on what we really achieved, and it can be useful to determine future runs’ viability.

Hi, it’s me

As is the case for most extraction shooters, the excitement comes from player encounters. Roaming the two currently available wastelands, we will almost certainly find other players in their mechas, be it from our faction or a different one. Via the in-game chat or emotes, players can state their intentions, but it’s impossible to ever know for sure what’s gonna happen. As of now, during the game’s early access week, the community seems pretty chill – almost nobody attacks, everyone seems helpful in assisting each others’ goals. But as the community figures out the game mechanics and will find increasingly tough completion goals, who knows how that will evolve. Combat is quite fun, thanks to the previously mentioned good mobility of the Cradles, though boosts don’t last long and the weight of the loot can slow down the action a good bunch. I’ve found sniper rifles to be the most effective way to tackle an enemy before they can damage me too much, but shotguns, assault rifles and more have their role too. Aside from the early weapons having a ridiculous bullet spread and some occasional small invisible walls near objects that ended up blocking my shots, I can say I’ve found the action generally satisfying. Not particularly deep or varied, but enjoyable, even as a background game while listening to a podcast.

On top of generic materials, that are always useful and can bring good cash, players indeed will have their own quests and objectives to work towards. These can range from eliminating a certain kind of enemies, to finding oddly specific items, most of which are scattered quite randomly or on other players to find. Of course, dropping items can be part of the negotiating process as well. People can trade items, force others to give them their loot to avoid getting wrecked, with the in-game emotes and chat options already set up to allow for many such scenarios. It’s often better to part ways with part of your bounty than seeing your entire mech destroyed – because that loss is permanent. Especially because buying and crafting new stuff is shockingly expensive, so an inconvenient demise could set you back multiple runs worth of progress lost in actuality – due to how much loot you failed to attract and to all the equipment you lost. Even buying ammo or repair kits is expensive, and crafting them takes plenty of materials. The game does seem to hate its players a bit, doesn’t it?

Dying sucks

When the player’s Cradle is destroyed, their virtual avatar Magus flees the robot and goes back underground. This means that not only all items on us are gone and left for others to scavenge, but the very parts that compose the mech can no longer be used. Be it the hull, the legs, the extraction tool, the weaponry or the ammo – all gone, in a poof. Watch out, because if you buy one of the expensive launch editions, with all sorts of extras and bonus robot parts – these also are consumed, if you were to perish. It’s easy to find new parts outside to be fair, and new ones can also be crafted in the base, but losing a particularly effective part can be quite painful. Stats about speed, health and max weight can be impacted by the rarity and quality of each part of the machine, with even exraction tools’ efficiency playing a part – as stronger minerals can only be extracted with better equipment. As such, it can often be worth using a less powerful build when in need of more generic resources, to avoid the risk of wrecking a crucial item on a trivial task. This happens way too easily, too, as the Cradle’s own radar seems oddly hit or miss, with various situations in which some particularly strong AI foe came out of nowhere, fully undetected. The game’s map and general readability could be better, for sure.

As said, even rain can be lethal, as it slowly drains the resistance of your machine. You need to find a cover to avoid taking unnecessary beatings, because even repairing the mech takes a not so small amount of money. As said before, things cost plenty. Players can insure one or more of their equipment, making it so that, in case of their mech dying, said item is not lost forever. In truth, however, this system is… not great, as of now. One low level item can be insured for free, but anything even remotely decent has astromical costs attached. When all of your early 20-25 minute raids don’t net you more than a couple thousand credits, seeing several tens of thousands of them being asked to assign protection on a single, not very powerful item is just… baffling. This is paired with a monetization and progression system that feels out of a free-to-play game – but it’s a paid title, which leaves a ton of questions.

Pay-to-win? Not really, but…

3 letters that scare gamers across the globe: MTX. Short for microtransactions, they can be anything from small cosmetic changes, all the way down to predatory slot machine mechanics and everything inbetween. SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada features a paid battle pass, cosmetic upgrades for your Magus (the pilot), but also tokens to alter your Magus’ physique, which is a weird limitation in what is, again, a paid game. The visual customization of the Cradles itself is rather limited, with pretty much only the battle pass skins that can be used on the 3 parts that make each vehicle. On the other hand, your Magus’ look’s customization is essentially a dress-up game of sorts, with all kinds of futuristic, cute, casual and whatnot outfits, down to the accessories and makeup. It’s not as expansive as something like Infinity Nikki, but the funny thing is that it’s not that far from it. And you’ll see your Magus plenty, as it also serves as an AI companion of sorts, floating around your mech, talking to your ear and doing certain special moves. This part of the monetization ain’t too bad – optional cosmetics with no competitive advantage, so be it. That’s the norm. The issue is much of the progression being behind… timers.

Oh, timers. I’m sure most of you played mobile games (or Facebook ones, a while back) where in-game timers limit your progress, forcing you to wait out several minutes (or hours) of real time before a task you began is completed. Unless, of course, you pay to speed up the process. And unfortunately, while this mechanic isn’t predominant in Bandai Namco’s new extraction shooter, it’s there and it’s quite annoying. Need a cool new upgrade to your base? Wait some minutes or hours. Need to progress with a certain quest? Would be a real shame if you had to arbitrarily wait a while for no good reason. You can bypass this by… paying. Okay, it’s the credits you earn by playing normally, but given how slow the earning rates are, this is far from ideal. I just don’t get why a paid game needs to not only have all sorts of MTXs, but even timers. Having them in from day one, no less, is just asking to have controversies.

Look at me

As of now, while there’s several missions and achievements to burn through, the content variety is quite low, with only two areas to explore and, thus, a fairly limited variety in terms of biomes and situations to encounter. While the graphics look fine, the performance in my test on Xbox Series X was rather uneven, with a lot of framerate dips and frequent freezes both in and out of action, making it unclear how much of it is down to the netcode. The game’s lore and characters are really nothing to write home about (it doesn’t even seem to follow some of the anime’s ideas), though I’ve found one aspect of the storytelling quite enjoyable: the Fallout-style PSA animations that serve as practical tutorials as to what to do (and what not to do) out there in the field. Much less effective is some other parts of the presentation, with the anime-style pilots (the Magus) featuring some “dress-up game-esque” style clothings, rather than more adeguate ones, and even a talking plushies with obnoxious voice that definitely hurts the tone of the game a bit. With the Magus constantly talking about everything that happens on the field, I feel like there’s way too much chatter, to a point that you end up ignoring most of it due to sheer exhaution.

SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada is a strange game for sure. It’s an enjoyable enough mecha-based extraction shooter, with serviceable combat and traversal and with the excitement of this genre’s formula. Said gameplay loop does very little to stand out from the crowd, despite a somewhat unique presentation, and the technical woes and limited content and variety thereof, end up limiting its potential. It’s also a paid game with tons of baffling microtransactions, timers to wait out, massive grinds and glacial progress, which could make you lose interest rather quickly. At its core, Bandai Namco’s latest is a solid extraction shooter, make no mistake. If you’re looking for that, jump in; this is certainly a very solid game in a vacuum, mechanically stronger than my score would imply. Arriving this late into the genre, however, it really should be offering more and better content than it does to really stand out – and it should respect players’ time and effort more. I ultimately have to wonder – with these flaws, will the playerbase stay big enough to give enough time for developers to fix what’s wrong, and perhaps make SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada truly one of the greats? As with a lot of game-as-a-service titles: time will tell.