Hunted: The Demon’s Forge Previews

Coverage from this year’s E3 continues to trickle out, and up now is another round of reviews for InXile’s upcoming action RPG Hunted: The Demon’s Forge. Atomic Gamer.

One thing I really like about Hunted is that the developers aren’t afraid to break a few things in the world to get your character through a particular quest or even just into a room. Very few fantasy games have had any kind of large-scale destruction, but here we see columns and ruins crumble before our very eyes. It’s a small thing when you’re reading about it, but it really does seem like it’s something that modern-day action gamers have been enjoying for so long, while fantasy games have lacked it. The world is actually changing around you in Hunted, whether you are the one that caused it or not.

This Is My Joystick.

The gameplay is what really impressed me though, and after saying so much about the graphics in my previous paragraph I’m questioning my ability to find the right words for it. There are slight puzzle elements to the game, in both combat and adventure. For instance, in combat the elven archer can shoot an enemy with an (Ice Arrow). This freezes them, and lets our warrior friend smash them to pieces. In adventure, she can shoot an exploding plant to clear the way.

RPG Site.

Another effort to make the game seem more realistic is the unobtrusive B-button that lets you interact with the world. When walking around in environments, players can simply interact by pressing B. when it appears at the bottom of the screen.

There is never a full menu which shows characters which buttons to press in combat but every now and then a special item or cut scene can be triggered with the B. button and a small photo of the item. For example, the Deathstone is often encountered as an on-screen plot icon and selecting it triggers a special event or cutscene.