Alkahest looks very good. Emphasis on ‘looks’ because both trailers released so far have been very scripted. Also, emphasis on ‘good’ because you get to bully goblins with your feet. It’s an open world RPG boasting a combat sandbox full of the sort of reactive flourishes you might find in an immersive sim. Crucially for fans of Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic (I’ve seen the words “spiritual successor” floating about, although not from the devs themselves) one of those touches is a boot. Here’s the boot in action:
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You seem to have an archer mate, off screen, that you can button-tell to shoot at interactive objects and goblins. We first see this when our character slides up to a cargo lift, then gets catapulted upward when an arrow flies in from nowhere and severs the rope. They then grab a barrel mid-air, before falling back down and braining a goblin with it. I would be very surprised if this is unsynced, impromptu barrel-grabbing. There’s probably a prompt that says ‘grab barrel’, if that. I’d also be a little shocked if the barrel hitting animation transitions into the fire throwing animation, then into the sword fighting animation, anywhere near that smoothly. Still, wishful stitching or no, someone had to animate all that, and they did a fine job.
As for a bit of context for what the game’s like outside of combat, here’s a trailer from last year:
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Plenty of fun stuff in there. Weapon throwing. Wood kicking. Spiky wall advantage taking. Cart skitching. We shoot some oil barrels then light an arrow on fire at one point. We drink a potion then throw the bottle at a goblin, annoying him for just long enough to slip an axe into his neck. Where the Dishonored influence becomes more apparent – and also presumably where that name comes from – is mixing and using a metal-heating substance to weaken an iron door before smashing through. Again, if this can be used to eg: render goblin weapons into useless melting slag-pops, rather than just being a specific door-based contextual action, I’ll be surprised. Happy, but surprised.
Pre-rendered trailers are flaky, impenetrable things – much like armoured croissants – but the game that’s being advertised here does look quite special, assuming it actually exists in any recognisable form. Also, it’s nice to see all those Moria goblins getting work after that damning plot hole was discovered in Lord Of The Rings. There’s no release date as yet, but you can suspiciously examine Alkahest on Steam here.