Coded Arms: Assault - The Cancelled Sequel to My Favourite PSP Game

What's this time? Time for me to discuss my favourite PSP game ever made? Half yes, half no. Welcome back to THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM, and, in my ongoing quest to blog about my favourite PSP games, I was planning on making a post on Coded Arms, a First-Person Shooter published by Konami, that happens to be BOTH the first FPS on the PSP AND the first roguelike on the PSP. There are a couple of other interesting things that Coded Arms achieved first, but that's not the subject of today's blog post. Just over two months after the release of Coded Arms on the PSP, Konami released Coded Arms: Contagion, another PSP-exclusive FPS that continued the story of the first game. However, until two days ago, I was yet to learn that Coded Arms had a PS3-exclusive sequel in the works entitled "Coded Arms: Assault".

The original Coded Arms.
Image Credit: LewisLongshanks

Coded Arms: Assault is one of those games that sadly hasn't had a leak yet. As of now, there is no playable demo available online, so all of my info for this post is from roughly 2005-2007. To start off with the basics, Coded Arms: Assault was its own thing. I'm okay posting about the cancelled sequel first because it essentially only shares the name and very rough premise, that premise being that you are a hacker-solider who is hacking into a virtual world for profit. To start things off, I'll be covering the basic plot elements that have been released. These are only confirmed points, as I will be speculating some things:

• The game takes place within Kagura, a virtual version of Tokyo
• You are a skilled hacker who has been hired to steal data from the Ashihara Corporation
• The enemies in the game are essentially the firewall of the Ashihara Corporation
• You will meet other hackers who are trying to steal the same data
• You will meet a professor who helped create the virtual world that the games takes place in
• You will meet a mysterious female hacker whose mission is to eliminate "visitors" into Kagura
• The mysterious female hacker is ambushed by three armed soldiers at one point
• The real world is being affected by what is happening within Kagura
• People are dying in the real world because of the situation in Kagura
• Kagura can be accessed using the TokyoWars_20.07 drug

The mysterious female hacker.
Image Credit: NeoGamer

So, these are some points that I've put together using various articles and clips. I still need to compile sources, but you should be able to find these articles and videos by searching for Coded Arms: Assault. Now that we've got the pure facts over and done with, let's move on to some theories I have about the game's story.

• The female hacker has the number "03" on her armour. Could this mean that she is one of the original hackers in her group?
• The AI of the Kagura system is self-aware but tells the player character that "this is not a virtual game world". Is Kagura another dimension or something more than a virtual reality system entirely?
• The player character is seen fighting a giant, green-eyed creature made of headless naked bodies in one trailer. Could this creature be the manifestation of people who have died in Kagura, or are these soldiers working for the Ashihara Corporation?
• The female hacker states that the player character is "kind of different". Could this be because he has survived the virtual world thus far, unlike other hackers?
• The previous theory is backed up by showing the player character with three other hackers wearing the same armour. Did they not survive the Kagura system?
• The female hacker says that "eliminating visitors is [her] mission", yet she is seen being attacked in the same trailer by people who don't look like the player character. Are these people security guards for the Ashihara Corporation, or are they other hackers trying to get the data like the player character?
• The female hacker says "My warning is for all visitors infiltrating Kagura. This isn't a game. There's real death here". Do people who die in Kagura die in the real world, and is this causing all the strange occurrences in the real world?
• The female hacker has a voice line saying "they're dead. In the real world". Does the player character have a family that has died due to his actions in Kagura, or are these the other hackers seen with the player in the screenshot mentioned earlier, following the previous theory?
  

The mentioned screenshot.
Image Credit: Yota/Unseen64

Well, those are some story theories of mine. In terms of gameplay, the game was being developed on the Unreal Engine 3, and would've been a First-Person Shooter. It most likely was not procedurally-generated, but rather a linear, story-based game. Two trailers were revealed for the game, and two playable demos were available at E3, as far as I remember. Hopefully this game will have at least one playable demo someday. Well, that's a wrap on THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM!