Swordcery is a new roguelike from two former God of War devs about a hero who wields hundreds of unique magic swords to vanquish evil.
The project is being spearheaded by Don Thurakichprempri and Mike Henriet, both animators on the 2018 God of War reboot. Thurakichprempri tells GamesRadar the duo was keen on making a game they had complete creative control over, and thus the central gameplay premise for Swordcery was born out of a weird dream about a knight using a giant pizza cutter as a weapon.
"The next day I hit up my buddy Mike and told him about it and we just thought it'd be so cool to see that circular blade spinning and unleash a devastating cutter blade projectile that would look like it was slicing the ground," Thurakichprempri says.
The plot begins with a giant blade plunging into a mountain range and stealing the Earth's power as smaller blades continue raining down from the skies. You play as Colt, an unwitting hero who's able to use the smaller blades to defeat an otherworldly evil. Heavily inspired by Hades, the game involves traversing through various procedurally generated dungeons, and when you die, you go back to the beginning with any credits you've earned for permanent character upgrades.
The swords you find and use along the way will fall into various weapon classes like Titan Sword, Katana, and Dual Swords - each one with its own light attack combo and a unique heavy attack. Every weapon also has a unique magic ability, called its "Swordcery." These include the ability to throw your sword like a boomerang, thunder down as a bolt of lightning, open up hellfire fissures, and summon a ring of protective snowflakes. Thurakichprempri says his favorite Swordcery is called The Fed Executioner, which he describes as "a funny crowd control sword that looks like a tape dispenser and it lets you trap enemies in cardboard boxes."
Swordcery has a free demo on Steam you can check out now. The prologue includes 21 swords, but more than 100 swords are planned for the full release. It's coming to PC sometime in the unspecified future, but the goal is to launch it on Switch and other consoles as well. If you like what you see, there's a Kickstarter you can use to pledge your support.
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