Wee Break: Techland's Action-RPG Hellraid On Hold
Time to make a cuppa
A Dead Island mod adding magic spells and whopping great swords was the initial spark for Hellraid [official site]. Developers Techland announced in 2012 that they were working on a first-person action-RPG with wizards and skellingtons and zapsticks, then codenamed Project Hell. As the years went by, the game slipped and slipped again. It was originally due in 2013, then slated to launch on Steam Early Access in autumn 2014, then... now Techland say it won't launch this year, as it's outright "on hold".
Techland said in today's announcement:
"In the recent months we conducted an internal analysis and came to the conclusion that Hellraid, in its current shape and form, is not meeting our own expectations for this project. Therefore, we decided the best course of action would be to send it back to the drawing board and invent our dark fantasy title anew.
"In the meantime, we will consolidate our development resources and focus on further expansion of our Dying Light franchise."
Our last peek at the game was in September 2014, after Techland had shifted the game over to version 6 of their Chrome Engine. It looked a bit pants, really. What should be a right lark about hitting skeletons until they explode in a shower of bones seemed slow and too interested in its boring fantasywank plot. It needed many more daft traps to kick enemies into too. Here's that last look, which I hope is so muddy because it's over-compressed from a livestream:
