Neptunia developer Compile Hearts’ new singleplayer TPS Scar-Lead Salvation will launch on May for the PC (Steam), PS4 and PS5. With its attractive female lead and fanservice, the title is very characteristic of Compile Hearts, but at the same time, it’s a hardcore, die-and-retry shooter – something the developer has never done before. We recently caught up with Hiroshi Aoki, Scar-Lead Salvation’s producer, and found out about the game’s rather wild origin story.
In Scar-Lead Salvation, you play as protagonist Willow Martin, who suddenly awakens in a deserted military facility. With no memories of who she is and why she’s there, Willow follows the advice of an AI companion to unravel the truth about her identity and the mysterious facility.
As a third-person shooter, Scar-Lead Salvation offers a variety of weapons that differ in parameters like power, shooting range and firing rate. Certain weapons come with special abilities like delivering wide-area explosions or stunning enemies. As the effectiveness of each weapon depends on the enemy you’re up against, strategic weapon selection is a core part of Scar-Lead Salvation’s gameplay.
Another key feature of the game is its clothes damage system – Willow’s armor visibly breaks down as she gets hit by enemy attacks, leaving her gradually more exposed. While her armor is still intact, Willow won’t take damage, but once exposed, she’ll start taking damage with each hit. This fanservice-y side of Scar-Lead Salvation is quite typical of Compile Hearts, but its hardcore gameplay and punishing difficulty are a huge departure from the studio’s usual fare.
Surprisingly, producer Hiroshi Aoki reveals that Scar-Lead Salvation wasn’t originally planned as a TPS. Instead, the whole project was born from the noble desire to build a game around a clothes damage gimmick. “There have already been games where characters’ outfits become disheveled or progressively torn as they take damage, and this was basically what we took as our initial concept. I know it may sound unbelievable, but it’s true. Our idea was, No one’s done realistic physics-based clothes destruction before, right?”
In this sense, making Scar-Lead Salvation a TPS was something of an afterthought. Why then, did it end up being such a hardcore shooter? It turns out, the punishing “die and retry” game design was also in service of letting the clothes damage system do its magic. Aoki offers a convincing explanation.
“Well, if you don’t get hit, nothing’s going to come off, is it? If we made it too easy to dodge bullets, the whole clothes damage mechanic wouldn’t get to shine. So, we decided that it had to be a game that’s out to kill the player. Thus, we arrived at a die-and-retry format.” No matter how much it may sound like a joke, Aoki assures us that yes, Scar-Lead Salvation’s game design was built around getting the protagonist to undress.
The funny part is, Compile Hearts focused on designing robust TPS gameplay for Scar-Lead Salvation so much that its hardcore side started stealing the spotlight, making the game more serious than originally intended. Aoki points out that, ironically, players won’t have time to get caught up in Willow’s sexy disheveled state because they’ll be too busy trying not to die.
Scar-Lead Salvation is scheduled to launch on May 29 for the PC (Steam), PS5 and PS4.
