Focus Interactive, the same lovely people behind Contrast, have released a brief story trailer for new game Bound by Flame via their YouTube channel. Check it out above.
The trailer gives a glimpse at all the beasties players can expect to come up against in this rather ambitious looking RPG. The video description says the game has "some unique and impressive creatures, each with their own behaviour [sic], which makes the battles both tactically deep and spectacular." It sounds like the behaviour of the beasts will give battles a Monster Hunter-esque vibe (which, to me, can only be a good thing).
The press release describes the combat system as 'rich' and that its complexity "is matched only by the player's freedom of action". It would appear that the player can walk down any number of divergent paths within this role playing game. The press release goes on to give a bit more detail about the story and the core conflict that players will be confronted with, affecting many of the choices they make:
"The player is possessed by a flame demon and will face a constant dilemma: should he allow the demon to exert its influence to use its mighty powers of fire, or reject its influence and develop his own heroic skills? The alignment of the player between his demonic and human side will affect various game events, quests and his relationships with his many companions."
As far as core gameplay gimmicks go, 'demonic possession' is pretty up there. But what's really cool is that "progression of the demonic influence will be reflected by the transformation of the hero's body", meaning the more you use it the more monstrous you yourself will appear. In addition to this, players have a lot of customisation choices, from facial structure and gender to combat skills and magic. There will be at least 3 skill trees for gamers to master. The game also has a crafting system allowing for a lot of options when it comes to your weaponry as well.
Bound by Flame is taking a short break in its development for the holidays, but it will see release in 2014 for PC, PlayStation4, PlayStation3 and Xbox 360. If combat is as good as it looks in the trailers, I'm totally sold! You can visit the game's official website here, like the Facebook page here and even read about the game's development at the official Spiders studio dev tumblr here.
