I wanted to share an idea I had for a new fighting game, born out of my frustrations with the lack of new IPs in the industry. Codenamed Synthesis, it's a 2D fighter that has an "archetype" class similar to how hero shooters have different roles (more on that later), and has an art style that has an "west meets east" vibe in that it takes influence from Japanese styles in addition to general western designs. The setting is futuristic, but based on what you'd find in the '70s and '80s as an interpretation of the future from that era. Old school sci-fi with personality is favored over gritty modern sci-fi without it, and the aesthetic is appropriate.

Premise

Note: I haven't gotten a solid outline of the plot yet other than the premise itself, as that's something I'll develop later.

The setting takes place in the 2070s. There's plenty of different kinds of futurism going around, and that's reflected in the roster itself. It includes normal humans, enhanced humans, cyborgs, robots, uplifted animals and even people with inherent powers of their own. The world is a place where the governments are often corrupt, the corporations hold all the power, and terrorism runs rampant. In the darkest hour, those who aim to be heroes must stand to fight evil, but that's easier said than done. Given the aesthetic, it might be the first cyberpunk fighting game (unless there's one that exists that I don't know about).

Gameplay

Synthesis takes cues from modern fighting games while also trying to stand on its own. Each character has a health bar and two different meters. One is called the "Synth Meter", which is a pink meter that allows you to performed enhanced versions of your attacks when filled to a certain degree. The other is called the "Ultimate Meter", which is a blue meter you fill to use your Ultimate Ability. Managing both meters is absolutely essential. Here's some bullet points on the gameplay:

• Synth and Ultimate are separate. However, they can be used in a combined fashion. Specifically, if both of your Synth and Ultimate meters are filled, you can engage "Ultimate Synthesis". This is basically a power-up that increases your damage output while recovering health during the process. The twist is that you can only use this mode once per match.
• Synth is a neon pink meter shaped as a bar underneath the health. Ultimate is a neon blue meter shaped as an angle to the timer in the center.
• In addition to the Synth/Ultimate meters, some characters have a separate meter for different aspects of their style.

As for the aforementioned archetypes, characters are divided into four different classes. Each one has a flavor of gameplay style that's different from the others. Those are Fighter, Ranged, Stalwart and Commander. Within those four archetypes, there's plenty of variation to go around. Here's the breakdown:

• Fighter - The most basic archetype, it's the all-around combatant who specializes in straight combos. May have some projectiles but that's not their strong suit, as they're often mobile and flexible in closing the distance. They're deadlier upclose than the Ranged, faster than the Stalwarts, and less complicated than the Commanders. In the most basic terms, they have no real weakness, but they also don't have the unique specialties of the others three.
• Ranged - The zoner-type, they specialize in fighting their enemy from the distance with special projectiles. While they have combos like the others, it's often of a high-risk and low-reward variety, and instead they're best suited to avoiding direct combat whenever possible and keep away from them at all costs while laying on the pressure.
• Stalwart - The glacier-type, it's the class for the "big guys" on the roster who are very strong but also slow. These guys are mainly about using their inherent strength to overwhelm the enemy, and they each have some kind of special trait that makes them harder to kill such as shields, armor or health recovery.
• Commander - The control-type, this is a unique class of fighters who don't fight by themselves. They have various factors assisting them, like a puppet, minions, assist characters, and even multiple characters treated as one. These tend to be the most complicated, but as they require the most strategy, but also the most rewarding.

I felt like having the archetypes labeled was important in giving the characters more distinctive features and having something to work with as a baseline. I've come up with a lot of different ideas for characters, and I'll share them later once I have them all written down.

Style

The main style is made to look like an old school sci-fi, with the '70s and '80s having a prominent influence on the visuals. Many of the character design also have anime influences, but combine that with the aforementioned motif. As such, the designs are based on what people back in those days would view the future. There's plenty of neon lighting, lasers and flashy effects. As for the music, it's mainly electronic, and it ranges from synthwave, nu jazz, techno, post-disco, trance and other synth-heavy genres to give the game an appropriate feel for what it's throwing back to. Basically, what Skullgirls was to the Golden Age and art deco, this is to the old school sci-fi era and cyberpunk.

So, what do you guys think of this idea?