Shadowrun Devs' Roguelike Necropolis Out In March
Still gutted it's not a Dredd thing
Harebrained Schemes don't only create remakes of olden meatspace games, you know. They only do that when they want to raise millions of dollars on Kickstarter. In between last year's Shadowrun: Hong Kong and next year's Battletech do-over, they're realising a 'procedural death labyrinth' (a roguelike, then) called Necropolis [official site], to which they've just announced the addition of four-player co-op. The thing's also due out in March, and some of you may be relieved to hear that it's skipping the whole early access thing.
Release date is March 17, which is good news as far as I'm concerned - I quite fancy this, but I'm very unlikely to play anything released within the gravitational pull of XCOM 2, which is out on Feb 5.
Pre-orders for Necropolis open on Feb 2, but you know the rule by now, don't you?
Harebrained describe Necropolis as '3D action meets roguelike', and as you can see it's going for the whole low-poly/stylised art style that we've lately seen used to good effect in Massive Chalice and Invisible, Inc, to name but a couple. You play as a nameless adventurer trying to find a way out of a multi-tier dungeon/museum run by a Bad Dude named Archmage Abraxis, and apparently combat is strategic rather than merely hacky-slashy - timing and animation is the key. Touch of Souls to it, maybe?
Death means you get sent back to the start of the Necropolis and have to do it all over again. Which is as good a metaphor for living in the British Isles during January as I can think of.
Here's some footage from last year's PAX Prime - expect more soon, no doubt.
