Severance: The Blade of Darkness Preview

There are no casual incidents ...

Ages ago, none but the noble, valiant warriors trod the earth, yet, as time passed, one by one became corrupted, their chivalrous virtues growing darker and turning into arrogance and vanity. Enraged gods, then, sent a beast with wrath - a fearsome fire-dragon to scorch them down until none remains standing.

Aiha, the goddess of kindness, showed pity on the wretched flesh, forging them an almighty Sword to overpower the otherwise unbeatable foe. And there was only one still pure and dignified enough to carry this weapon with pride; and Blade was his name; and yes, he was victorious. The beast, then, heavily wounded, retreated to its cave to sleep a thousand years, and once fit for battle again, return and fulfill its purpose. Blade, wounded, died shortly after, yet his valiant name still lives through many a song and legend to preserve the story of his deeds, forever...

The Sword was buried near the warrior, to be secured by five locks; the five keys scattered and kept safe by five brave knights.

This day, one thousand years later, we face a peril that seems even worse: Vile mage Dal Gurak rallied his forces and sent them all over our country to wreak chaos and destruction. He knows the legend of Blade and the Dragon, he knows the dragon will soon awake, he knows the wielder of the Sword will control the Dragon, he knows the resting place of the Sword, he knows he already has the first of five keys, he knows your time is short...

One of the four may be the chosen one and the choice is all yours...

The Knight, member of the eight-century-old Order of the Sword, lived his noble life in defending the kingdom against pagan attacks in Lagash in the kingdom of Naram Sin. Knights of the Order are calm and well-balanced fighters, skilled in use of almost all types of weaponry. The Order has never found its match until now. One of its two fortresses have fallen to Dal Gurak's legions and there has been no news of it for two weeks now...

The Amazon lived her peaceful life in Argos beyond the frontiers of the middle kingdoms. Her agility and dexterity will often make up for her inability to carry any heavier armor or weapons. She is a good ranged fighter and will always prefer bow and arrows to any other weaponry.

The Dwarf comes from the underground citadel of Heim. A powerful and steadfast warrior he is, he is able to use any weapons and armor as long as it fits. The dwarf is virtually immune to poison and magic. The only thing he lacks is speed.

The Barbarian is a born nomadic warrior from the high steppes of Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut and is fit for any fight. Strong and merciless, he is the strongest of all the four characters, yet he despises the use of armor. His intuition and stamina, along with a mighty sharp weapon in hand, make him an awed adversary in the eyes of his enemies. He prefers two-handed weapons.

The developers provided about eighty different appropriate magical and ordinary weapons for your characters to use. There will be different types of damage a weapon can cause like concussive, slashing and piercing, and they will both determine how the hit enemy reacts on them and usage limitations (not all players will be able to use all weapons). On the other hand, you will be able to use most objects in game as weapons. As I already said: there will be both magical and normal weapons. Non-magical weapons will, of course behave in coherence with all the laws of physics; whereas things like magic missiles can hardly be expected to abide things like mere gravity. Each character you may select has several possible strategies he (or indeed she) can use in confronting enemies. It's up to you to choose your favourite one.

As all thirty five different types of your enemies start pouring in from all possible sides you will soon discover that each type has a lot of various dynamic way of getting hurt, and to make the enjoyment better still, a decent number of gore-zones and mutilation models. The enemies will range all from tiny yet thoroughly irritating critters going for your shins to gigantic behemoths (the remaining 33 types are somewhere in between). Each race will have its own psychology and race-specific tactics and skills. The enemy AI should prove very smart according to what I've heard. One of the catches about combat strategy is that there is a specific winning combination for each PC vs. each NPC; meaning that the strategy you use to fight a troll when playing the Barbarian will much differ from what you will have to use if you play the Dwarf.

The game will consist out of eighteen levels, each set in a unique environment containing unique monsters to slaughter. You will have to pass barred deserts, volcanoes, castles, fortresses, gorges and towns in order to complete your quest. Each level will also have its set of missions and, of course, the boss waiting for you at the end. Depending on the character you use you will start on a different level, in your character's homeland, so to speak. The atmosphere of each environment will be introduced by a movies sequence and appropriate epic music. As the single player levels seem to be too big for multiplayer mode, the game will ship with a set of multiplayer death-match maps.

The portal-rendering engine renders all the animated sequences just like the rest of the game. The best thing about Blades visual engine is the way it uses lighting. Using no ambience light at all and substituting it with a good shadow and reflection system seems to be a new trend in games nowadays. Anyway, it certainly looks great and defiantly contributes to the atmosphere.

The animation was mostly motion captured, so it is as realistic and fluid as it gets. Each of the PCs and each of the NPC classes have specific movements and animations. As much as the characters' repertoire of movement is abundant whilst living, it gets better still on their dieing bed (well, OK cobble-stone). As there are a lot of gruesome and pathologically violent "fatality" moves, there has to be a corresponding number of the ways each creature dies. You can turn all of this off, but, hey, who would do such a thing?

Sound effects and music seem quite becoming for an FRP. The game has a built in support for both A3D and EAX. This aspect is the only thing in the game not done by Rebel Act studios.

There are four cameras that you can use. The first one is a typical 3rd person shooter camera. The second one is somewhat closer to the hero and gives you an over-the-shoulder-vision. The third is a 1st person view, and last (and probably least because it doesn't seen too usable in combat situations) a free camera rotating around your hero.

When an enemy enters your line of sight a gadget will appear in the top-right corner of the screen informing you of his level and hit points. The gadget will also let you "lock" onto the enemy; i.e. concentrate your attacks on him and keep him in focus. If the enemy manages to get out of your sight, the "lock" will ware off. This feature is not necessary for attacking the enemy, its just very useful.

Enemy combat AI is one of the most emphasized revolutionary features of the game. Their combat tactics and psychology will be race specific. Enemies are capable of real organization and "group work" in combat. For instance when three knights attack you and you manage to severely wound one, he will retreat to take his healing potion while the other two will try to keep you busy and watch his back. As soon as he recovers, he will join the fight. On the other hand Orcs are much less organized and will frequently start fighting amongst themselves during a battle. The element of fatigue is also taken into account - the more you fight the more tired you get and that will surely affect your fighting abilities. Fortunately, this goes for the enemies too.

When you explore a room, tool-tips will appear over all interactive objects (and there is quite a lot of them, too). When you "use" them they will automatically be consumed, if consumable, put in your inventory, if they can fit, or just taken. All the traps and puzzles should prove fairly simple because this is still an action-focused game.

To summarize: Blade is basically a hack and slash FRP game, meaning that there is not too much FRP or adventuring involved. This does make the game more playable, and increases its possibility of becoming a big commercial hit; still that remains my only objection to the game. If they did make such an impressive combat AI, why did they let the adventuring aspect of the game come down to passive linear scripted animation sequences? Whatever the case...

"The Moon shall be tinged with blood; the Sun will be obscured; the Earth shall be covered by waters and the brilliant stars shall fall from their sanctuaries in the heavens; fire and smoke shall rise up until they reach the very skies" -Oracle

Update (06/23/2000):

We received word from our good buddy Kjerand Pedersen, the webmaster of Blade Universe that the screenshots rendered through the toon-filter (shots four and five) aren't too official, so to speak, because the developers did not decide weather to include the filter in the final product or not. Well, if it doesn't reduce performance too much, I say: Go for it! It really looks nifty!

Anyway, if you're interested in the game, go check out Kjerand's website @ www.blade-universe.com for the most up-to date comprehensive info on the project.