In-Depth Look At Dawn of the Monsters
Kaiju Ramen commisioned this piece from me. I enjoyed writing it since, at the time, I hadn’t written anything like it before. This was originally published in the 6th issue of Kaiju Ramen Magazine. You can check out the pages and magazine below!
In the year 2036, a race of giant monsters called Nephilim is unleashed on the earth. Three decades later, humanity is ready to fight back! If that sounds exciting then Dawn of the Monsters might be the game for you. Announced in November 2021, Dawn of the Monsters is a new giant monster beat-em-up game coming from 13AM Games and WayForward out now. For those who fondly remember the PS2 Godzilla games, this could be the game to fill that role in the modern era. The game is available on all consoles, and PC and supports couch co-op so you can play with your friends. Dawn of the Monsters is clearly a passion project for all involved and it looks to pay off.
13AM Games are self-professed “giant-monster enthusiasts” and have been making “stylish 2D” games since they were founded in 2014. For CEO and creative director Alex Rushdy, himself a hardcore kaiju fan, Dawn of the Monsters represents over three years of work. “Time sure flies”, he told kaiju Ramen when asked about the development of the game. Alex said the idea started “Way back in 2016” when it was originally pitched as a fighting game. After they switched gears and revisited the concept as a “ co-op beat 'em up” they were able to find a partner who wanted to publish the game. That partner turned out to be WayForward, themselves an independent game developer.
As for the game itself, Dawn of the Monsters enlists players in DAWN (Defense Alliance Worldwide Network), an elite organization created to stop the Nephilim from destroying the planet. Throughout the more than 35 missions players travel around the globe to fully destructible locations from Toronto to Tokyo. The main objectives will be to tear through enemy hordes, obliterate monster nests, battle gargantuan bosses, and earn DNA augments that can be used to customize the character of your choice by powering up their stats and abilities. When you’re in a bind you’ll also be able to “rip a building out of the ground and use it to pound the Nephilim into the dirt.”
When asked about inspirations for the game, Alex said “we are big fans of Pacific Rim, the Heisei Gamera trilogy, Ultraman, and, of course, Godzilla!” The inspirations are immediately felt within the game. Players get to play as four guardians such as Megadon, the living volcano, Ganira, the colossal crustacean, Aegis Prime, the Ultraman-inspired superhero, and Tempest Galahad, a mech inspired by Pacific Rim’s Jaegers (complete with neural interface with its pilot). Each of the playable guardians offers the player unique moves and abilities and has a variety of Rage skills, meter-based Cataclysm Attacks, and brutal Execution finishes that are unique to each guardian.
When it comes to the ancient foes of the game, the Nephilim, the inspirations go even deeper. To craft the villainous monsters, the team looked to the works of Tohl Narita (a Japanese artist) and Akira Watanabe (a Godzilla special effects art director) “as well as ancient sculptures, architecture, and artifacts,” Alex added. Since the Nephilim are ancient creatures from the Earth itself, it made sense for the game designers to look at such ancient material. All this was to ensure the creatures had the look of something that crawled out of the Earth itself.
Even though Dawn of the Monsters is a passion project for the developers at 13AM Games, they wanted to bring together a team of all-star talent to collaborate with. This talent includes Shiji Nishikawa (legendary Godzilla character creator), Matt Frank (Godzilla: Rulers of Earth), EJ Su (Transformers, Rise of Ultraman), Zander Cannon (Kaijumax), Powerhouse Animation (Castlevania, Untitled Kong: Skull Island Series), and much more whom long-time kaiju fans will surely recognize. Together they worked together to strike a balance between originality and inspiration. Each guardian comes equipped with a unique backstory that pays tribute to the genre and franchise that inspired it. “I think the hardest aspect is balancing recognizability against novelty.” Alex said when asked about the difficulties of crafting original kaiju, “On the one hand, you want people to look at the game and go ‘wow, that looks like the kaiju I grew up with!’ but on the other hand you want people to look at it with some novelty. After all, we don't want to make a parody or pastiche of kaiju- we want to offer a whole new world with its own lore, characters, and plot.”
Giant monsters and mechs aren’t the only characters in the game of course. DAWN, the organization at the center of Dawn of the Monsters, is populated with an entire team of colorful characters that players will see throughout the game. To bring these characters to life, they brought in the voice talents of AmaLee (Attack on Titan), Cristina Valenzuela (Shantae and the Seven Sirens, RWBY), Xander Mobus (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate), and Patrick Seitz (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure), among others that fans will surely recognize. All this talent 13AM Games brought together was so they could make the game truly feel like the kaiju love letter they intend it to be.
CEO Alex Rushdy continued to further explain the challenges of coming up with an original kaiju concept in this day and age. He spoke about how “a monster simply being big doesn't make it a kaiju, it has to have the sensibility of the classic Japanese films and television shows.” While the balance was difficult to strike, he and his team are confident enough to believe they have achieved their goal and have made something that will make kaiju fans very happy. “There is enough to make it recognizable as ‘kaiju’ and enough new stuff to make sure you'll be surprised and delighted!”
Dawn of the Monsters' goal is to deliver hours of city-smashing, kaiju-bashing, side-scrolling action for one or two players. The game boasted an incredible team of passionate kaiju fans of all types, ensuring it is the love letter 13AM Games set out to make. Dawn of the Monsters is out digitally now on consoles and PC, with a physical edition for select platforms being offered by Limited Run Games (for you physical media lovers). For those of you who miss the days of couch-co-op monster games such as SNK's King of the Monsters or even Godzilla: Save The Earth, this is probably exactly what you’ve been waiting for.
