Underworld Ascendant New Prototype Blog Update

The folks at OtherSide Entertainment have published a new blog update on Underworld Ascendant that discusses extensively the new movement and combat mechanics implemented in the latest prototype of the game and also offers a quick look at some screenshots that follow Nate Wells’ new art style for the title.

Judging by the write-up, we should expect a complex and flexible movement system that will take into account momentum and a handful of combat moves that will form the backbone of what I presume will become a much more complex combat system in the future:

When a game has great movement controls, like the old Id games Doom and Quake, they become an extension of the player. No thought is needed for basic navigation, and it opens up for players to become more creative and skilled at getting around the world. In recent memory Mirror’s Edge did this especially well. The Parkour skills chain together so beautifully and when you master the game it is like a ballet moving around the game world.

Tim and Will have put together the bones we can build on for a robust movement system. They have decided – at least for the moment- to have full body awareness. This means that the body of the player can be seen by the player, and it also reacts like any other physical object in the world. Momentum matters. Run faster you jump further. Chain jumps together you keep your momentum going, stop for a second and your momentum is lost. Jumping wall to wall if you pause you start sliding down the side of the wall. Sliding down a slope is fast, running up a slope is slower than on a flat plane.

…

Second, we’ve stood up the beginnings of combat. There are 3 attacks so far: a light swing, an overhead swing and a stab. There is a bad guy wandering about who just wants to be hit.

Most RPG games have you cleave your way through battles without much thought. Looking at my Fallout 4 play through I’ve killed over 4,000 enemies. Yikes. Maybe I’m the reason the Commonwealth isn’t prospering.

Tim is trying to make each encounter more meaningful and impactful. We will also keep the combat encounters intimate, giving more opportunity to show off unique features of the monsters and opponents. If you look back on the simple combat of Ultima Underworld they were all intimate affairs.

That is the feeling we are going after, but with more robust tactics, movement and use of the 3D space than was technically possible in the original games. Enemies with have ‘tells’ so the player can learn to react to them properly. We are still looking at other complexities like locational damage, status effects, dodging and blocking. How complex we push the AI in combat is being experimented with, but we expect them to have options, not just ‘ARRGH kill the player’ and ‘oh no I’m hurt! Run away’. If they have spells they will use them, if they are carrying a magic weapon it will be equipped.