Athena
Your shield is your identity — cover for civilians, a melee weapon, and a wall against the swarm
About the Project
Athena is a first-person escort-shooter vertical slice built in Unreal Engine, developed with Tensei Games staff augmentation. The player controls Grind, a soldier in heavy combat armor, guiding a shrinking group of civilians through an 11-beat, escalating warzone mission to a dropship extraction point. The core system is the shield: a tri-state mechanic that shifts between full mobility, a raised defensive stance, and a fully anchored "dug-in" mode offering maximum protection at the cost of movement — civilians read an anchored shield as the safest place to stand, tying combat, movement, and NPC behavior into one coherent identity mechanic. Combat layers firearms, throwables, and the shield itself as a melee weapon against soldiers, a swarming spider horde, and an aerial drone threat. Built to validate core mechanics, pacing, and emotional tone ahead of full production, Athena centers on protection and loss rather than pure firepower — losing a civilian is designed to feel like a real cost, not a fail state to shrug off.