By Jim Rossignol on January 13th, 2011 at 8:52 pm.
Atlus send word that their forthcoming melee-combat game, The Cursed Crusade, has a new trailer out, and hot damn, it’s looking fine (below). The game features dudes getting stabbed, hacked, and impaled, but in a good way, you understand. Good because this is a violent game about medieval manstabbing which sprawls across Europe through besieged castles and other splendid locales. You play a cursed Templar in the game – there’s a big dollop of supernatural power under his hood – allowing you to enter a powered-up hellvision mode and kill people up with even more enthusiasm, as you can see from about one minute into the trailer.
The game – which is being developed by French dev house Kylotonn – will apparently feature online co-op and will be out this summer. Hmm, I might retroactively add this to the 2011 list, although Kylotonn did make that awful Speedball 2 rehash, so maybe not…
13/01/2011 at 21:02 Kryopsis says:
Perhaps my expectations were really low, but this doesn’t look half bad for a combat game, despite conjuring up less than flattering memories of EA’s Dante’s Inferno demo.
13/01/2011 at 21:13 Toby says:
Looks quite good and coop you say? I am all ears.
13/01/2011 at 21:15 Stepout says:
Can you add Path of Exile to the 2011 list as well? You mentioned Grim Dawn and TorchLight, PoE easily deserves mention among them.
13/01/2011 at 21:30 TheFlyingWooly says:
I do wish someone would make a Warhammer manstab game, preferably one where you play as a slayer.
13/01/2011 at 22:37 wiper says:
Pfft, night goblin fanatic all the way!
13/01/2011 at 23:40 Creeping Death says:
Well Space Marine is on its way. Admittedly its manstabby shooty and 40k instead of Fantasy… but it’s the closest we’re gonna get I fear
14/01/2011 at 09:57 Okami says:
@wiper: in this case it would have to be a first person game though!
13/01/2011 at 21:37 Jeremy says:
That looks pretty brutal, and the animation looks fairly spot on which is critical in action games. I’ll have to keep on an eye on this one to see if the game mechanics pan out to be as fun as they look in action.
13/01/2011 at 21:50 JKjoker says:
all this trailer does is remind me how awful Dragon Age 2 looks
13/01/2011 at 22:43 JFS says:
The RPS picture above instantly conjured Dragon Age 2 up to my mind, as well. Dragon Age 2 as it could have been.
13/01/2011 at 23:17 Freud says:
The Bioware marketing people will tear their hair out if they have been out-blooded.
13/01/2011 at 21:56 Teronfel says:
Cool, I like stabbing people
14/01/2011 at 00:09 Nasser says:
Me too. I look forward to this game.
13/01/2011 at 22:30 outoffeelinsobad says:
I was about to mention that the main character seems to take life with an uncanny stoicism, and then he turned into a demon.
Anyway, looks interesting.
13/01/2011 at 22:32 rocketman71 says:
It does look good, perhaps a little too Princey without the acrobatics (the monsters are there, though).
And Jim, as long as you’re adding games to the 2011, I haven’t seen Trackmania 2 in there. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t out by June, since the beta is about to start and they usually take 2-3 months until release.
13/01/2011 at 23:15 Jake says:
He passed a spear clean through a dude. The only thing worse than being killed in a muddy medieval battle would be being killed in a way that is blatantly just the other guy showing off, then kicking you on your arse, oh the indignity of it all.
14/01/2011 at 07:42 JB says:
Yeah, I thought the spear-kill was pretty good stuff =)
On the whole this looks interesting.
13/01/2011 at 23:25 Tagert says:
This looks surprisingly decent. Definitely keeping an eye on this.
13/01/2011 at 23:51 Zyrxil says:
I don’t know why people have low expectations of this. The fantastic animations in all the trailers released so far show at least great competence in that area.
14/01/2011 at 00:26 Lilliput King says:
Perhaps because the Speedball 2 remake shows little competence in any other areas.
13/01/2011 at 23:55 DavidM says:
Can some developers stop using “Templars” as the generic bad guys?
They were smeared by the Catholic church who needed a scapegoat.
They are quickly becoming the “Nazi” of medieval times.
14/01/2011 at 00:18 Rinox says:
TEMPLAR COMMIE NAZI SCUM LOVER!
14/01/2011 at 00:26 Tagert says:
I’m surprised you missed ‘terrorist’.
14/01/2011 at 00:29 Lilliput King says:
DIEEEEEEEEEE POND SCUM
You can’t really demonise terrorists. The sentiment is pretty much implied.
14/01/2011 at 00:32 pipman3000 says:
[inflammatory statement about catholic church being evil]
14/01/2011 at 07:40 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
Nobody wants to make a game about the Templar’s banking system.
15/01/2011 at 16:40 DeathHamsterDude says:
Oh man. Maybe I am in the minority or possibly even on my own here . . . but I would LOVE a game about the Templar banking system set during the crusades . . . inspired by Recettear.
Low on supplies? Go out and pillage a village.
Decide on the delicate balance of selling to your customers, or killing them and taking their stuff. Careful though, you need to leave some of your customers alive to buy stuff.
The one thing I can’t decide on is if I’d prefer cutesy JRPG-style animations, which would be a lovely juxtaposition to the crusades, or out-and-out decadent western gore-fueled romps through the desert.
Mmm. Recholicity: A Banking System Game.
14/01/2011 at 00:28 Nallen says:
So it’s just the fighting from AC2 then?
14/01/2011 at 15:50 Fumarole says:
With the accompanying baddies-waiting-their-turn-to-die as well it would seem.
14/01/2011 at 00:50 Kaltano says:
Very nice of the opponents behind him to wait their turn to be stabbed rather than taking a swing at his wide open back. Gentlemen to be certain.
15/01/2011 at 04:34 dsiglin says:
This. I know they don’t want the game to be too hard. But it looks stupid for them to wait their turn.
17/01/2011 at 11:53 RegisteredUser says:
You, kind gents, need to play Mount&Blade: Warband with difficulty turned to “same damage for me as for them” and then try to solo vs a proper enemy onslaught.
Or just play it in general to see how you can actually have bearable, yet simple combat.
Oh, if only someone added advanced physics and actual graphics to that game and 2-3 times more swings/moves/combos..
14/01/2011 at 01:23 Muzman says:
Looks good. It all hinges on the controls though really. Is it a God of War-esque ‘Push fire lots to cause partial death and create combo opportunities’ or is it a bit more Severance like: detailed and a lack of patience and tactical thinking will get you killed.
14/01/2011 at 01:39 pupsikaso says:
Hopefully this plays like Demon’s Souls?
14/01/2011 at 03:14 noobnob says:
Nothing better than a trailer showing that games are far from having decent cloth physics. Couldn’t help but notice the garments clipping on the crusader’s model all the time.
But I digress. Everything else looks great.
14/01/2011 at 04:35 DOLBYdigital says:
Huh, I was actually disappointed with this video. After reading the comments and hearing everyone say it surprised them, I guess it built up my expectations too much :)
Seriously, it looks like AC combat with silly enemies waiting their turn to get stabbed repeatedly. If the controls are really fun then maybe I’ll check it out, otherwise it looks bland to me.
14/01/2011 at 07:18 Spacewalk says:
Next time wipe the jam off the magazine before you scan the screenshots, Jim.
14/01/2011 at 07:39 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
I was right about their use of the fourth crusade. They are going for the “demons misled the crusaders” angle.
Thank god. This could have been so much worse.
14/01/2011 at 09:23 Pemptus says:
I really hope that the trick with the spear couldn’t used on every single enemy. That’s pretty much the bane of games like this – a “fuck you” button commencing brutal, overly long and samey murder animations. Boring and flow-breaking. Kind of like heads falling off in every time you shoot a guy in it in Fallout 3.
Looks pretty otherwise. I hoped there’s some dose of tactics in there, but in retrospect I don’t think it’s that type of game.
And I am certainly NOT posting too quickly, mr. retarded RPS WordPress thing!
14/01/2011 at 10:39 Jonathan says:
Hmm, Atlus publishing PC games, you say? Tell me more.
(For those ignorant of console-land, Atlus has found itself a nice little model — they find niche-interest foreign games, typically Japanese, then localise them for Western consumption. Generally they pick very excellent niche-interest foreign games.)
14/01/2011 at 11:34 Ed123 says:
Eh, even if it’s a generic slasher I’ll pick it up just for The Sack of Constantinople.
15/01/2011 at 04:36 dsiglin says:
I have to say the Haja Sophia looks so much better in person.
14/01/2011 at 11:55 Deccan says:
I was going to complain about the silly amount of overkilling – surely it’s enough to run a man through without wasting further seconds on needlessly flashy “finishing moves”; I know I’m not getting back up once three feet of steel lieth twixt gut and bladder – but then I remembered those Viking remains they unearthed with half a dozen or more separate axe wounds to the skull alone.
As you were, medieval manslice simulators, as you were.
14/01/2011 at 12:22 RegisteredUser says:
I do rather enjoy violent games about medieval manstabbing which sprawl across Europe, so I for one am keeping my fingers crossed that they won’t ruin mechanics, interface, use save points rather than anytime save or other console “features”, allow me to optionally use a gamepad with intuitive controls and combos, and so on, and so forth.
Also: yay, manstabbing and bloodgorebloodviolence!
14/01/2011 at 23:17 Christian Dannie Storgaard says:
Oooh, something approaching realistic animation, I like! It always pulls me a bit out of the world of the game when characters move like they’ve got cocaine practically spewing out of their nostrils.
The scale of the sceneries also looked appropriately big without going over the top.
Looking forward to it.