Sydney studio Gamesoft is promising to provide atmospheric adventuring and devious puzzles in its debut title, Clockwork.

Clockwork is in development for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and mobile platforms, will launch later this year.

It is set in the great mechanical city of Watchtower, where the last survivors of a great plague have found shelter within metal walls and metal bodies. Watchtower is divided by poverty and technology; the glittering spires of its upper tiers towering over the thrumming power plants and smoking factories of the industrial slums.

Players control a young boy named Atto who, thanks to his clockwork companion Milli, is able to duplicate himself and slip through time in order to overcome the obstacles heading his way.

"Clockwork is a story about unlikely friends coming together to try and fix an imperfect world in a time-bending puzzle-platforming adventure story,” said lead writer Daniel McMahon.

“We want to ask players the question: ‘What if you could go back in time, to before everything changed?’"

Clockwork is by no means an indie game, even though it is Gamesoft's debut, said Gamesoft CEO Vishal Gumber.

“Our young team is ready to take on the best of AAA," said Gumber.

More details are expected at GDC 2015 in early March.