At Gamescom 2026 in Cologne, I tried an extensive demo of Silver Palace, Elementa’s upcoming free-to-play action RPG.
The first and rather impactful impression is certainly created by the visuals, which are certainly beautiful. The environments and costumes have a distinctive Victorian-punk look that distinguishes Silver Palace from the many games in its increasingly crowded niche.
The color palette is interesting, definitely leaning toward cold hues. I don’t know if that has a deeper meaning, but it contributes to making Silver Palace feel different in a genre made up of super-colorful games.
This is not to say that Silver Palace is a drab or colorless game. Its characters and world have plenty of color, but I simply felt that the overall palette is less in-your-face compared to the usual free-to-play fare, more subdued and dream-like.
Animations are absolutely a strong point of Silver Palace, and perhaps this isn’t as distinctive. I really don’t know why, but developers from Asia really manage to make it seem easy to create super-fluid, spectacular combat moves, and this game is no exception. Combat almost feels like a beautifully choreographed dance, but we’ll get more into that later.
Ultimately, the visual presentation is definitely one of the game’s strong points, and I’m confident that it will draw in many players, giving the gameplay a chance to shine.
The demo I tried included two parts. The first was a sandbox exploration of the city of Silvernia, which is rather breathtaking, with its Victorian architecture and striking spires, combined with the moody colors and reflections created by the rain.
It’s easy to explore thanks to the fact that you don’t necessarily need to move on foot. You can use a grappling hook to negotiate elevation and as an attachment to slide across pre-existing slides attached to the walls.
While that’s certainly helpful, my favorite was a majestic pegasus mount that is capable of limited flight and gliding. Seeing the city of Silvernia from above is perhaps even more satisfying than from street level.
Speaking of the streets, they’re not as peaceful as they appear, as some of the citizens are contaminated and can reveal a much more hostile nature. This happens when you reach certain story waypoints that trigger a fight, or you can actually investigate and expose passers-by who hide a monstrous nature.
Of course, just how much you can do in this large city remains to be seen, but the demo felt promising.
The second part of the demo was a rather spectacular boss fight set on a massive airship shaped like a flying whale, as the heroine’s award ceremony goes awry and a massive entity named Vita and Mors attempts to pretty literally crash the party.
This is where I could take a better look at the combat system, which puts a party of four characters at my disposal. Each of them was very different in their looks, animations, and abilities, and exploring their options was definitely pleasant.
There’s no autoattack, and you can lock enemies and then execute a normal attack with a single press of a button, so you have to button-mash a bit to chain your strikes.
You can also use a complementary skill with a different button. For instance, the fundamentally melee-based heroine Munin can also use this alternate skill to shoot enemies downrange with a gun. That being said, this requires a modest expense of Activation Energy, measured with a gauge at the bottom of the screen.
Both types of attacks can be chained together seamlessly, and when you stun an enemy, you have a fairly generous window of time to execute them.
In terms of defense, you can also parry and dodge, making the basic system relatively technical to the point that it’s rather satisfying. Both come in handy when fighting bosses that lay down area-of-effect strikes, as getting out of their range by simply walking is challenging.
While fighting, you accumulate Reactor Energy (measured by a second gauge to the left of the screen) that can be used to switch to another character while executing a powerful special move at the same time.
Once your Activation Energy is full, you can use it up completely to unleash a spectacular and powerful ultimate attack.
While it’s not a complicated combat system, it’s intuitive, engaging, and spectacular to see, which is pretty much what you’d expect from this kind of game, especially when combined with the great animation and cutscenes that underline crucial moments of the battle.
It’s hard not to think about the fact that Silver Palace prepares to enter an extremely crowded and definitely challenging market, dominated by a few games, dethroning which is perhaps close to impossible.
That being said, its unique atmosphere is definitely a strong argument; the visuals are great, and the combat is fun, so hopefully we’re looking at a winner.
Silver Palace is coming soon for PC, PS5, iOS, and Android. Global pre-registration is already open.
