Arcania: A Gothic Tale GC Preview

1UP has cranked out a quick preview of Spellbound’s Arcania: A Gothic Tale, based on what they saw of the RPG during the Leipzig Games Convention.

The final part of the demo centered on an extremely lifelike face model of one of Arcania’s characters. Developer Spellbound says they were inspired by Crysis to explore how they could get hyper-realistic characters into their game, and this early attempt looks great. Unfortunately, they added that the actual in-game models may not be the same quality — they’re waiting to balance performance.

Though I didn’t see any real gameplay, we broached the subject in a question-and-answer session following the demo. While reports about Arcania’s direction surfaced earlier this year in some previews, Spellbound now says that info was released prematurely and may not accurately represent the final project. All they are providing for now are a few minor facts: Quests will take up only about 30 percent of the overall gameplay, with the rest devoted to choosing sides between several bickering factions. Timing will still be important in combat, but it won’t be the decisive factor that it was in Gothic 3. And along with yet-to-be-revealed major changes to combat, the team is trying to get rid of deaths caused by bad luck alone. No more getting ambushed by a fireball without some chance of surviving.