When was the primary time you seen physics in a online game? For me, it wasn’t bifurcating a headcrab-zombie with a noticed blade in Half-Life 2, or seeing a Cleaner goon collapse right into a stack of cabinets in Max Payne 2. It was watching a bunch of zombie limbs roll down a hillside in Myth 2: Soulblighter.Â
Bungie’s fantasy ways sport was greatest recognized for the chaos created by its bomb-throwing dwarves, and I distinctly recall being mesmerised by how their ordnance would scatter undead physique elements throughout the sport’s undulating pastoral landscapes.
The Myth collection has lengthy been eclipsed by Halo’s stratospheric success, however the Dallas-based Stray Kite Studios remembers it nicely sufficient. The developer’s newly introduced sport Wartorn channels the frantic decision-making and kinetic fight of Myth and its sequel, and as one of many three different individuals who keep in mind Bungie’s fantasy collection, I’m very excited certainly.
Wartorn sees gamers assuming management of two elven sisters travelling throughout a conflict-ravaged panorama on a private quest to seek out their household. That’s in response to Stray Kite’s press launch, which additionally explains that alongside the best way, they will must “confront ethical dilemmas and battle exterior and inner threats”. Given there’s solely two of them, I’m undecided how inner threats will work precisely, until the sisters have an enormous falling out, or catch a abdomen bug from ingesting improperly purified water.
The trailer launched alongside the announcement does not present a lot perception into Wartorn’s narrative aspect, but it surely reveals loads concerning the fight. The bits that struck me as notably Myth have been the arrow-barrage skill round 30 seconds in and the second an ogre slams its membership into the bottom simply earlier than the minute mark, triggering a shockwave that scatters a number of unlucky gobbos throughout a area like hayseed.
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Yet there’s loads right here that diverges from Bungie’s template, too, akin to a powerful emphasis on elemental skills, like fireballs and a nifty-looking tidal-wave spell that bowls over a gaggle of fiery demons midway by means of the trailer. These components will apparently work together with one another in acquainted methods (water quenches fireplace, lightning electrifies water, and so forth) whereas additionally wreaking havoc inside what Stray Kite claims are extremely destructible environments.
As somebody who loves messing with the weather to make issues explode (I will need to have been an alchemist in a previous life), Wartorn’s trailer whispers all the best phrases in my ear. It additionally has some notable expertise behind it. The mission is led by Paul Hellquist, whose credit embody lead designer on SWAT 4 and BioShock at Irrational, and later sport design director of the unique Borderlands. Meanwhile, Stray Kite’s cofounder Shovaen Patel labored on the Orcs Must Die collection earlier than establishing the studio, which is likewise evident in Wartorn’s DNA.
In an interview with YouTuber CohhCarnage, Hellquist mentioned Wartorn’s connection to the Myth collection. “We have been placing up completely different concepts of the sorts of video games we wished to make. And I introduced up, ‘Hey, have any of you guys ever performed this sport Myth. And Shovaen instantly was like, oh, yeah, I beloved Myth again within the day,'” Hellquist says. “That’s what obtained the ball rolling and us occupied with ‘Man, it might be actually cool to form of revive a number of the issues that have been in that product, however modernize it.'”
No particular launch date has been introduced for Wartorn but, however Stray Kite says Wartorn will launch later this yr into Steam early entry. If you wish to know extra concerning the video games that impressed Wartorn, Myth and its sequel aren’t in the stores wherever, sadly, however they’re additionally not too tough to seek out if the place to look.
