By Jim Rossignol on May 10th, 2012 at 8:00 pm.
The handsome knights of Neocore – they of the strategy-with-RPG-bits King Arthur games – have announced that they are creating an action RPG called The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. The game will be “loosely based on Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula” and tells a tale in which Van Helsing find himself enlisted by former supernatural foes “to defeat a new scourge terrorizing the ravaged Eastern European city”. No details on the action side of things yet, but if Neocore’s take on the strategy genre is anything to go by, this could be an interesting proposition. It’s slated for release in Q4 2012.
10/05/2012 at 20:05 fiddlesticks says:
“Loosely based” probably means it’ll have more in common with the film Van Helsing than the character from the novel.
Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I always thought that film would make a pretty good game.
10/05/2012 at 20:25 Peco says:
Van Helsing (2004)? Let’s hope it makes a better game than movie then… If they need any movies to base things off of they could always go with Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) or Dracula (1931). Although I doubt they will go with Anthony Hopkins’ Professor Van Helsing
10/05/2012 at 23:35 skyturnedred says:
The film makes a better action game though, while the older movies might make for a better adventure game.
10/05/2012 at 23:59 DickSocrates says:
I have read the book, and I hope they don’t make him like he is in that. I grew to hate the stupid old fool with his fake Viennese/retard accent.
11/05/2012 at 11:24 Lemming says:
You could just play Castlevania: Lord of Shadows instead.
10/05/2012 at 20:22 smeaa mario says:
The idea surely attracted my attention.
10/05/2012 at 20:34 Kamen Rider says:
Another ARPG? God damn’t. It’s really strange how all these ARPGs waited until Diablo III was being released to make themselves really known. There was quite a gap between II and III that would have been a much better time for release. Maybe everyone just forgot about the genre till Diablo III popped up again.
10/05/2012 at 20:52 Demiath says:
What about games like Fate, Torchlight, Titan Quest, Depths of Peril and Din’s Curse? The PC-style ARPG genre has definitely not been dead and buried in the 12 years between Diablo 2 and 3…
10/05/2012 at 20:54 Hoaxfish says:
er, wait… have we decided to define “action RPG” as “diablo-like clicky-clickies”?
’cause I’ve been shoving Fable and things like that in the “action RPG” definition too
10/05/2012 at 21:55 Demiath says:
At the very least, I’d say the “PC-style ARPG” is and should be synonymous with Diablo and its clones. The console-style action RPG (mostly a Japanese thing but including Fable and recent Western copycats) is in some ways a very different beast both control-wise and in terms of its relationship (if it has any) to roguelike ur-ARPGs such as Nethack and Angband.
10/05/2012 at 21:59 jrodman says:
No matter the label, the style was relatively scarce.
I think that’s OK, but the current pile is a bit surprising by comparison.
11/05/2012 at 01:26 mwoody says:
Action-RPG = Diablo=like
Adventure = Point-and-click
Action-adventure = Zelda-alike
Adventure-RPG = Fable-alike?
11/05/2012 at 13:54 rokahef says:
I could get on board with such a categorization.
10/05/2012 at 21:46 rustybroomhandle says:
And Sacred / Sacred 2.
10/05/2012 at 21:33 Burning Man says:
That guy in the image looks super cute.
I can get behind cute slaughter of not-so-cute vampires. Unless they’re cute too, which works as well.
11/05/2012 at 00:28 RedViv says:
Frankenstein’s creation with a steampunk-ish energy weapon? Intriguing.
11/05/2012 at 01:45 tangoliber says:
I wish that the guy in the image would be who we play as. Would be a memorable main character.