Seven: The Days Long Gone shows off sneaking, disguises and murder
Due out next week
Seven: The Days Long Gone is a terrible name and a fascinating game. It’s a stealthy RPG from former Witcher 3 devs that calls to mind everything from Thief to Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. It’s due out next week, but in the meantime I've been playing a little. Carry on for some thoughts and a new trailer with some stealth lessons to learn.
I’m in the process of reviewing it for RPS fanzine PC Gamer [Traitor - Ed] and have mostly been stripping corpses and running off with their clothes in an effort to create a selection of handy disguises. Peh, the prison island on which the game is set (not the dismissive noise I make when I hear something ridiculous) is largely open, so I’ve been getting up to mischief on my own terms, breaking into places I shouldn’t be, stealing everything not nailed down. I’m already in prison -- what have I got to lose? Actually quite a lot, but we’re venturing into spoiler territory.
The trailer says there's "always more than one solution to a problem" and that sort of free-wheeling experimentation is very much present right from the get-go. I was able to ignore all of the tutorial’s instructions and complete the first mission in an entirely different way, just by mucking around and testing the game’s limits. I left a lot of naked, booby-trapped bodies lying around.
Peh itself, and the world it resides in, is an unusual place. It’s a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, but there’s mysticism and magic that verges on the fantastical, along with the trappings of an industrial dystopia with a dash of cyberpunk. It’s a mashup of a lot of different settings, which I haven’t decided if I love or just find really confusing.
Seven: The Days Long Gone is due out on Steam, GOG and the Humble Store on December 1.