When deciding on the scale and complexity of the world in Vaporum, we knew we had to aim for something smaller. With four people, you cannot create huge worlds in a reasonable amount of time. At least not if you want the world to be vibrant and filled with interesting places and events.

Because our driving philosophy here at Fatbot games is quality over quantity, we chose to adopt a linear approach, with well defined paths for players to explore, rather than a big, open space. This way, we could ensure those paths were full of concentrated game play and high-fidelity content.

That doesn’t mean that the game is one long corridor with no deviation. There are plenty of opportunities for exploration and a lot of places hidden from plain sight. These secret areas usually hold worthwhile rewards in the form of weapons, armor, rare gadgets and bits of the story.

Tips for Players

• Explore! The Tower of Steam is riddled with, well, riddles. And secrets. Checking every nook and cranny can yield valuable items and pieces of lore if you uncover these hidden areas.

• Don’t invest in too many circuits. Focus on two, maybe three circuits at a time, and max them out, to get the most out of them as soon as possible. The modules at the 5th rank of every circuit are especially powerful, but they also present an irreversible choice. There are numerous viable builds available, so study the “skill tree” in advance to find and make use of strong synergies between all the circuits, modules and your gear.

• Enemies in Vaporum are tough, especially on higher difficulty levels. Be aggressive and don’t let them corner you. Dance around and take advantage of your superior speed. Some enemies possess area attacks which can even hit you diagonally, so always keep your distance when they’re about to use them.

• Whenever you destroy an enemy for the first time, an entry on it unlocks in the Arx Pedia. These notes can shed light on the backstory of the game and the specific enemy types but can also give you valuable information about their strengths and weaknesses.

• The maximum rig level you can achieve is 17. However, it’s quite a feat to reach that level, requiring a lot of preparation and specific steps. Can you figure it out?

We hope this gives you a glimpse of what awaits adventurers in the content-rich world of Vaporum.

Vaporum is available now for Xbox One on the Microsoft Store. Click here for purchase details.