I always insist that, despite all their shortcomings, Dead Island and its rather lazy pseudosequel Riptide were at least ambitious. And every once in a while, they were downright fun to play. Hellraid sees the departure (at least for now) from the setting of "Tropical paradise infested with zombies" in favor of dark castles and bleak swamps of medieval fantasy Europe.

Hellraid shares many similarities with Dead Island, as this brand new 30-minute gameplay video - which was apparently shown to the press at E3 back in June - clearly shows. The combat mechanics seem largely unaltered in essence, and the types of enemies you encounter have the typical variation from light and feeble, ranged, sorta tough and big and badass. And of course, 4-player Co-Op returns in style. Though that's not shown here.

What I personally found the most intriguing about the video, wasn't so much the gameplay. It was more the announcement after the gameplay demo had ended. Marcin Kruczkiewicz from the Polish veteran studio Techland, explains that when Gamescom opens up around this time next week, they'll have another demo from a new level. What's more, it'll run on their upgraded Chrome Engine 6 as opposed to version 5, which is what this demo was utilizing (along with Dead Island and all of Techland's other games since 2011). We'll hopefully see some improvements to various things beside the obvious graphical overhaul - perhaps some destructible environments? You have to admit, it would be pretty cool if that end boss' swings would actually destroy the wooden columns as he hit them.

Hellraid is set to release sometime next year. Participation in Steam's Early Access program is also planned later this fall.