Lords of the Fallen is an upcoming Action-RPG game by CI Games, co-developed by Deck 13. Heading to your PC, PS4, & Xbox1 in 2014.
http://www.destructoid.com/lords-of-...r-261041.phtml
[Show spoiler]Start keeping tabs on this one
Lords of the Fallen looked good at E3; it looks even better at PAX Prime. After another hands-off demo, the next-generation action role-playing game really seems to be coming along nicely. Admirably, it seeks to improve, or at least deviate, on the formula that a certain well-known and similar couple of titles nearly perfected.
There's no two ways about it -- Lords of the Fallen invites comparisons to Demon's/Dark Souls. The developers are painfully aware of the fact, almost immediately surrendering into an anticipated half-chuckle as the first syllables of the From Software's projects names were uttered. That's ultimately okay though, because Lords of the Fallen doesn't aim to mimic the Souls games.
Rather, Deck13 is structuring Lords of the Fallen to be a bit more of an accessible Dark Souls. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy -- spending any amount of time in front of the game makes that much wildly obvious. But, it's also not going to be punishing. Challenging and complex? Definitely. But not punishing.
If Lords of the Fallen comes off as punishing, there's a fair chance that you're doing something wrong. Dying will happen, but the developers don't view deaths as a failure; they view it as part of the learning process. If you're repeatedly dying, try something new. Be more patient, learn the patterns of your opponent, and try to limit battles to one-on-one.
There are times when you'll encounter multiple enemies at once, but those will likely be few and far between. The developers think that the majority of the game will be spent engaged in single-enemy affairs. "I may be prone to exaggerating, but we want every single fight to feel sort of like a Tekken or Street Fighter battle," one developer told me.
It's obvious that combat is the primary concern in Lords of the Fallen. Actually, the developers went so far as to say that it really isn't story-focused. Sure, there will be a narrative, cut scenes -- everything needed to make it a coherent experience -- but, Deck13's putting more emphasis on ensuring that the fighting sequences are up to snuff.
However, exactly how those fighting sequences play out are entirely up to the player. Magic spells looks as if they'll play a big role, but the game can be beaten strictly with conventional melee attacks. Each class will have a few unique spells, which appears to be the only way that players are barred from complete customization. As shown at E3, changing gear can effectively switch the player's class on the fly, but these magic spells are a way to lend weight to the class decision made at the beginning of the game.
We're still a long ways away from Lords of the Fallen's release, as it's slated for late 2014, but any action RPG fan needs to keep tabs on this one. Every time we see it, it's looking better and better. Hopefully it can deliver on all this promise it shows.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...en-dark-souls/
[Show spoiler]'Lords Of The Fallen' Looks Like A Next-Gen 'Dark Souls'
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‘Lords of the Fallen’ is a dark action-RPG being developed by a former ‘Witcher 2′ developer, and it looks a lot like ‘Dark Souls.’
Once known as Project RPG, Lords of the Fallen is being developed by Deck 13 and City Interactive, and headed up by former Witcher 2 developer Tomasz Gop.
While The Witcher games may have influenced Gop in this project, Lords of the Fallen is being described as much more akin to Dark Souls.
Certainly early screenshots have a Soulsy feel to them.
Character development is open-ended. There are no classes, and you customize your character build as you progress.
This is similar to the build options in Dark Souls as well, however Lords of the Fallen has a main character named Harkyn. And while the game is open and exploration is being encouraged, it will still be chopped up into chapters.
The backdrop for the game’s story is interesting enough. Humanity has overthrown and imprisoned its god, the titular “Fallen.” The “Lords” are now coming to free their dark deity. The big lava knight in these screenshots is one of these Lords, and sounds like a pretty terrific boss fight.
Andrew Groen of the Penny Arcade Report describes it thusly:
Combat is slow and methodical, like Dark Souls, and winning the fight is less about trying to expose some hidden weakness than it is about figuring out the best way to engage this intimidating enemy. This particular foe fought with big, swooping strikes, so it was best for the demo player to dive in at the right time to get a few strikes off quickly before retreating.
The boss fight was fairly entertaining just to watch. As its attacks slammed its bright orange sword into the ground, clouds of sparks would fly out from beneath it. The giant lava-encrusted knight kept shaking off large chunks of broken armor after they’d been bashed by the player’s strikes to reveal more of the creature within. As it shed more and more armor its style even changed from a lumbering knight to a more agile swordsman who twirled around, swinging the massive sword in circles around himself.
You really can see the Dark Souls influence in these screenshots. In the above shot Harkyn is decked out in full plate armor wielding a broad sword. A couple screenshots below, we see him in what appears to be more cleric-inspired garb and armament. There’s also, dare I say it, something Gears of War-esque about the character models. They have that almost cartoonish bulk about them.
(On a side note, I still think Epic should make a dark action-RPG. Between the latest Gears game and their iOS excursion into the world of Infinity Blade, I think they could make the leap successfully.)
Back to the game at hand: I’m intrigued. The combat doesn’t sound exactly like Dark Souls, but it certainly bears its mark. Here’s GameZone’s Mike Splechta:
A stamina meter will dictate your character’s ability to dodge roll out of harms way, and swing their weapon a certain amount of times. Though there aren’t classes per se, your character’s behavior will rely on the currently equipped weapon. Each weapon class, from what we’ve seen three today, will have its own associated skill. For example, a hammer will allow the player to make a clone of himself, which will in turn aggro the enemy. Daggers on the other hand slow time, allowing you to get behind and score a critical finisher on the enemy.
The combat itself seems a little faster paced and somewhat smoother than Dark Souls, which is a welcome feature. Whether it was harder, that’s hard to tell, one because I didn’t actually get to play the game myself, and two because it was an E3 build, and chances are the dev’s characters might have been beefed up. Regardless, dodging heavy hitting attacks and striking at the correct time seemed to be a necessity, rather than an optional strategy.
Between Dark Souls 2, The Witcher 3, and now Lords of the Fallen, E3 2013 showcased some pretty incredible looking RPGs. Gop’s new game will be coming to PC, Xbox One, and PS4, so next-gen gamers have more than just The Witcher 3 to slake their RPG thirst.
I can’t wait to get some hands-on time with this one.
Here’s one more interesting tidbit from the PA Report piece:
“Germans still like all the epic material where a guy has a club in his hand and runs through forests,” said Creative Director Jan Klose of Deck 13. “Maybe Polish people as well. I think for the region, stories are really big and storytelling is really big in this part of the world. And Dark fantasy is a cool way of telling stories, because they get more to the heart than some lighthearted, shiny-mailed knight running around without a care.” You can hear the disdain in his voice when he talks about traditional fantasy fare.
Every region of the world is different, and has different tastes and inclinations. He gave adventure games as an example. They’re still a viable business in Germany, but less so in North America. “It’s a cultural thing that people want to have these stories, and in Lords of the Fallen we don’t want to tell the player a story, we want them to explore it.”
That’s another very European style of game making. More than once this week at E3 I’ve heard from a developer that when you make a game for Americans, you generally need to tell them what to do every step of the way, or they get frustrated and annoyed. Tomasz Gop said that Eastern European players want you to leave the game obscure and explorable.
“They appreciate when you do that,” he said. “There’s a strong demand from people to find out things on their own. So that’s why we want to do this type of game, and we hope that we can be successful with it.”
I think a lot of Americans also like it when games are left obscure and explorable. The notion that American audiences want their hands held the entire way through may be a reflection of the market here—Call of Duty anyone?—but I think there’s a pretty huge segment of gamers in North America that want more games like Dark Souls that don’t hold our hands and don’t spell out every facet of the story for us.
It’s just that the United States, especially, is a huge country with an enormous amount of diversity in its gaming population. Making games for an “American audience” is difficult, which is why so many attempted AAA blockbuster attempts are a disappointment. There is no one universal “mainstream appeal.”
But I digress. I’m just stoked to see how Lords of the Fallen is shaping up. Praise the sun!
http://www.gamespot.com/gamescom/lor...souls-6413640/
[Show spoiler]Lords of the Fallen: More than High-Fantasy Dark Souls
August 25, 2013 6:22AM PDT
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Maxwell McGee
By Maxwell McGee, Editor
With its methodical combat, Lords of the Fallen could be seen as yet another spin on the Souls series--but its developers have something else in mind.
Watching the demonstration for Lords of the Fallen, the upcoming, third-person action role-playing game from Deck13 and publisher CI Games, I was struck with a sense of déjà vu. Here was a very deliberate, calculated game where every blow was decisive and deadly. I felt like I’d seen this before, in a game GameSpot’s own Tom Mc Shea will never stop talking about. However, after speaking with developers Jan Klose and Tomasz Gop, I learned that Deck13 is aiming to distinguish Lords from Souls in a few key ways.
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"We want to make our combat really feel credible and make you feel like you’re in control of every action and see the consequences," said Klose. "Dark Souls didn’t invent this style of game--but it did execute on that style in a really brilliant way. This is something more games should be doing, instead of just [hacking-and-slashing]." Devil May Cry, this is not.
During the demonstration, Klose and Gop emphasized the importance of observing--and learning--your opponent. Most fights were one-on-one duels, and when our hero attempted a blind assault the enemy cut him down in moments. The second time, our hero kept his distance while learning his opponent’s moves. A strategy was formed: dashing attacks could be countered by rolling into the enemy swing and countering from behind, while sword swipes always came in sets of three and left the enemy vulnerable after the final swing. Armed with this knowledge, victory soon followed.
Gop and Klose compared this style of combat to that of a fighting game: proper spacing, prediction, and reaction yielded greater payoffs than spamming attacks. It’s a challenging system that rewards putting care and thought into each attack. However, Gop was quick to note that, while their game will be challenging, they don’t want it to feel punishing. "We’re not a punishing game, at least not if the player doesn’t want [punishment]," he said.
I know challenging and punishing sound alike, but Deck13 wants to make sure players can have one without the other. If you want to make the game challenging for yourself you’re free to do so, and you will be rewarded for your efforts. But if you find yourself stuck on an especially difficult foe--or are simply uninterested in the extra challenge--Lords of the Fallen won't punish you. Instead, it gives you some tools to help odd out the evens and give yourself an edge in battle.
"The game still has this level of tactical approach, of complexity, but you don’t have to make it punishing if you don’t want to."One example is the game’s magic system. Magical abilities are extremely powerful in Lords of the Fallen, such that the developers refer to them as "Smart bombs." One example I saw was a spell that knocked enemies off their feet, letting our hero score a few free hits before his opponent could right himself. So what’s stopping you from using these spells at every turn? Well, if you manage to defeat an especially challenging foe--say, a boss--without using magic, the game will reward you with extra loot or other goodies for you trouble.
"If there’s an enemy you feel is tough and, for whatever reason, you get a hint from the game that there’s only one way to defeat that enemy and you simply don’t have the time or patience to learn it, you can use supernatural powers to defeat it that way," explained Gop. "The game still has this level of tactical approach, of complexity, but you don’t have to make it punishing if you don’t want to."
Chances are you'll die a lot in Lords of the Fallen, but the developers want you to learn something from every death.
Other tools for tackling tough opponents included sneaking up striking them from behind for extra damage, or in some cases taking an alternative route to avoid the fight entirely. Deck13 doesn't want you to feel hopelessly stuck in any fight. Lords of the Fallen is designed to be challenging, but exactly how challenging is up to you.
"And it’s not like you can use all these means to mindlessly rush through the game," Klose added. "They’ll give you a head start, but if you do not learn the basics of fighting and tactics you won’t make it through this game."
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Lords of the Fallen
Looks like a rental for me
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