News by Matt S.
Welcome to Digitally Downloaded’s regular catch-up news feature. With each issue we will bring you the best news that you may have missed. Grab the biggest mug you’ve got, fill it with your favourite brew, and catch up with us (and our favourite news anchor, Dee Dee)!
Love tabletop wargames? You’re going to love Wartile!
By Matt S., Editor-In-Chief
Wartile has just landed on Steam Early Access, and it’s a game that people who like the occasional tabletop wargame are going to just love. The aesthetics of the game are designed to evoke the appeal of moving figures around a static diorama “board” and hurling dice down onto the table to simulate combat. Or, if you’re like me, throwing the dice at the other player to actually create combat.
The game takes place in the era when vikings were regularly raiding villages in what we now call England. It’s a purely turn-based affair (just as actual tabletop war games are), and features both single player and multiplayer. Players can customise their miniatures by giving them different pieces of equipment and statistic tokens, and the tactics of the game are further enriched by being able to play cards through battle in order to influence battle outcomes.
Getting access to the Early Access version of the game will set you back about $20, with no release date for the full game just yet. As it’s an early access game, you can go in assuming that there will be bugs and the like to work though, but this does look like a project that’s worth supporting. I mean, just look at the trailer — this game is gorgeous!
Shiness weaves its magic this April
By Britta S., Contributor
We first brought you news of Shiness: the Lightning Kingdom in February, and here we are already with the release announcement! After some development delays, April 18 is now the launch date on consoles (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) and PC. French developer Enigami promises a journey through a magical universe on the fragmenting planet Mahera; going by its latest trailer the term “magical” is, for once, not over-promising.
Watching the video, I get that distinctive sense of wonder and excitement that many games try to capture but few succeed. I call it the Ni no Kuni factor.
We have the main character, Chado, and his 4 companions, and the titular ‘Shiness’ which is a mysterious spirit imbued with magic. Embroiled in a conflict across multiple kingdoms, your band of adventurers will need to do all the stuff you expect in an action RPG. Fights bring a fresh twist to the genre as they revolve around the use of both magic and traditional fighting game mechanics. If the story is as spell-binding as the media material suggests, we could have an adventure worth embarking on come April 18.
Be a bloodthirsty viking – stop Ragnarok!
By Britta S., Contributor
Matt first reported on the Diablo-style action RPG Vikings: Wolves of Midgard back in July 2016. We’re always keen on a Diablo clone at DDNet, and the Viking theme continues to be a highly popular one. Clearly developer Games Farm and publisher Kalypso Media think they may have a Berserker winner on their hands.
Vikings: Wolves of Midgard launched globally on March 24 on PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One in Europe; North American consoles see it on March 28. A new trailer was released for the launch — it’s just over two minutes long and labelled as a ‘featurette’ — showcasing some of the game’s brutal combat and boss battles you encounter on your mission to stop Ragnarok.
The game focuses on the single player campaign with regular story mode and New Game+, and there is an additional ‘Trials of the Gods’ challenge mode which grants special equipment and runes. The multiplayer component consists of a two-player online co-op mode. The campaign will take around 20 to 30 hours, Kalypso say, depending on the chosen difficulty setting.
Musou Stars set to be the sexiest Warriors game ever thanks to Dead or Alive Xtreme tech
By Matt S., Editor-In-Chief
Sometimes a game engine is worth a story all in itself, especially when it’s indisputably the most sexy game engine ever made being applied to the most exciting Musou (Warriors) game in years. That’s right: Koei Tecmo’s “Soft Engine,” which was technology developed to make the girls of Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 so ridiculously… fleshy… is powering the Musou Stars game, due for release in Japan very soon, and hopefully the rest of the world not far behind it.
Musou Stars brings together heroes from Dead or Alive (Marie Rose!), Toukiden, Samurai and Dynasty Warriors, Atelier, and Nioh (and probably others that I’ve forgotten) for an all-in mashup that is similar to what Warriors Orochi did, only with more franchises. The Soft Engine will be there to make sure the game’s ladies bounce, wobble, and ripple more sexily; and more generally speaking, to make sure the game has superb individual character physics, which should result in some incredible action once it’s all in motion.
We don’t have a confirmed release in English yet, and this is distressing; between this and Blue Reflection Koei’s holding out the Koei games we’re most interested in, but I’m betting the odds are that the announcement of this game is not far away at all. In the meantime, there’s some footage of the game in action above.
