Ok, I normally do not like to talk about Kickstarters because I am personally not a huge fan of crowd funded game development.
I’m making an exception in this case just because there haven’t been that much actual new developments in the ARPG genre. There is a playable demo (pre alpha) which as with most early versions, I won’t critique. It is based on the Unity engine though (which usually has these pathing issues when it comes to movement and combat).
The pre-alpha (build 0.4.5.2 as of this entry) demo offers a quick preview. I will say this, compared to other early versions of games that I have played that were based on Unity, I didn’t encounter the usual clunky movements where it was easy to get stuck on the environment (a common problem while I was play testing FIVE: Champions of Canaan back in 2016 for example). The combat itself feels similar to what exists in both Grim Dawn and Wolcen (which is in early access). In other words, for an early demo, it looks promising.
Site: https://lastepochgame.com/
The developers said this will be online only (like Diablo III and Path of Exile) in order to discourage exploits and cheating.
Opinion: When it comes to what is mostly a single player instanced game (like what ARPG’s tend to be albeit with limited co-op), being completely online only has become a negative. Besides the DRM/anti-piracy factor, I see no reason for not having an offline mode as well. As I’ve written before, it can be just like StarCraft II’s offline mode where you cannot earn any achievements. And if the online aspect has features like leaderboards, then offline would not have that either. Sometimes, I just want to hack and slash without having lag/latency related jitter while I am soloing.
Update: the developers have a FAQ which states there will be multiplayer online, single player offline, and LAN play. I personally have no problems with this setup.
Note: As far as traditional ARPG’s go, I’ve actually become somewhat disengaged and have been losing interest in this genre because I’ve been finding the isometric/fixed camera view a huge limitation when it comes to the exploration potential of these games. That particular realization became apparent as I played through Grim Dawn and Wolcen (both have the ability to rotate the camera BUT are still limited by the quarter view of the environment).
