Hand of Fate 2 deals delights and disasters in November
The smug git returns
"I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW," Alec shouted in his Hand of Fate review, proper riled by its personification of procedural generation. He is the Dealer, and it's his gnarled hand laying out our hardships in the action-RPG. All locations, enemies, items, battles, and decisions of an adventure are represented by cards he deals from a deck, see, and he's a right smug git about it. Well, we'll soon be cursing him again, as developers Defiant Development today announced that Hand of Fate 2 [official site] will launch on November 7th.
Hand of Fate is, at heart, the combination of an adventure card game and an action game with basic Batman: Arkham-style brawling. Cards determine where we go, who we face, and what we find, then we slip into third-person action to dole out beatings. But the conceit of the Dealer papers is so wonderful, a masked face and a smug voice turning a random number generator into an arch rival. At least you get to give him a right drubbing at the end.
He's back in the sequel, seeking revenge on the hero who toppled him - and has turned out to be a wrong'un themself. This time, players will face new enemies, have new companions fight at their side, use new fighting styles, and generally fight a lot of monsters and baddies as they collect cards and build decks. Expanding the real-time combat does sound good, as it was fairly simple in the first. And I'm sure the Dealer has a few more tricks up his sleeve.
Hand of Fate 2 is due on November 7th, priced at $29.99/€24.99.
