Satellite Reign, the spiritual successor to Syndicate and Syndicate Wars, is coming to Steam Early Access later today.

The title is a real-time class-based action-strategy game where you assume control of four highly trained agents, each with their own array of abilities and a different specialty, doing various missions and fighting it out in a cyberpunk city of the future.

The title is being developed by independent video game makers 5 Lives Studios, after concluding a successful Kickstarter campaign, back in July 2013.

The game is designed to expand on the classic Syndicate formula, offering a rich and open game world, designed to facilitate emergent gameplay and to encourage gamers to create their own strategies and scenarios, having the necessary tools to play however they choose to.

Gamers will be able to use brute force, infiltration or propaganda to influence the citizens of the city and overthrow the competition, gaining and securing ever more influence over the sprawling metropolis.

The premise

As any cyberpunk fan or citizen of today's world can attest, the world's governments are ruled by corporations and base their decisions on the availability of natural resources.

As such, democracy is conducted in a way that favors the highest bidder, and those in power reap the rewards of well-placed propaganda and ignorance.

Society has a very vertical structure, with the rich living lives of luxury in the upper tiers of the city, the vast middle class living a comfortable lie, and the poor forced to live in squalor in the underbelly of the great machine.

Corporations enforce the status quo via a brutal police state where any malcontents are dealt with expediency and lethal force, all under the guise of safety.

You play the role of a resistance movement rising from the streets below, bribing, stealing, hacking and killing your way to the top.

Whether or not your goal is to free the people from oppression or simply to divert power from them to you is something that is yet undecided.

Gameplay

The game will enable you to customize a team of agents and choose your path, whether your ascension will be done through an all-out Western shootout or through cunning, hacking and infiltrating the opposition, having your way without anyone ever knowing of your presence.

Missions won't be as static as the ones in XCOM or other similar titles, with clear fail states, but will instead feature various dynamic objectives, and failing one will open the door for other opportunities later on but will also be penalized.

There will be a variety of weapons to make use of, divided into several archetypes, each with its strengths and weaknesses, in order to accommodate for different playstyles.

The visuals have been crafted to reflect the grim world of the futuristic dystopia, managing to evoke a strong feeling of familiarity for those who have experienced the works of William Gibson or who have played Syndicate.

If you're interested to see how the game actually plays, you can have a look at the Early Access trailer and the developer gameplay videos below.

Satellite Reign is available on Steam Early Access starting today, December 11, and will be fully launched at an unannounced later date.