Following the large success of Hades in 2020, we’ve seen a lot of video games try and comply with in its mighty footsteps; even Supergiant has damaged from its custom of recent concepts for a sequel. Sworn, in the meantime, takes the essential ideas and construction of probably the greatest roguelike video games in recent times and lovingly adopts it to the fantasy realm of King Arthur’s Camelot, creating one thing that feels without delay reassuringly acquainted and distinct sufficient to justify its existence. At Gamescom 2024, I sat right down to test it out with sport director Sam Leonard and artwork director Sean Evans of Windwalk Video games, and got here away able to play much more.
On a floor stage, Sworn has all the important thing test marks you’d count on from a sport within the Hades mildew. There are 4 biomes you need to progress via as you problem the corrupted King Arthur and his Knights of the Spherical Desk. Your character has a primary assault, a particular assault, a spell solid, and a dodge, and these are amplified with varied skills bestowed upon you by the Fae Lords. But, other than how completely the world of Camelot suits this roguelike construction, what actually units Sworn aside is the sheer stage of depth on provide.
To begin with, Sworn offers you 4 totally different characters to select from: Vigilante, Rook, Spectre, and Monk. Every of them comes with 4 base weapons to select from and 4 distinct spells, supplying you with a fairly dramatic variety of potential mixtures even earlier than you set out on the run and begin choosing up all these build-defining upgrades.
I go for the Spectre: amongst her weapons is a bolt-blasting Armillary Sphere and a large, sweeping Scythe, the latter of which instantly catches my eye. On the spell facet, there are a selection of selections together with a beam assault and a short-ranged teleport that explodes as you journey, however I go for Spirit Guardians, which I can summon to drift round her, mechanically firing off assaults at any close by enemies. There’s a incredible quantity of selection right here, and every of the choices feels effectively thought-out.
Each weapon will get its personal branching improve tree, and pleasingly every is formed to suit the weapon in query. As you unlock the assorted nodes, every providing incremental boosts to its potential, you’ll encounter two ‘major’ ones that provide a selection between two stronger upgrades. For the Scythe, I can select whether or not I construct up souls over time or whether or not they’re earned as I assault enemies, after which decide how I spend them – my particular assault can both eat all of them to heal me proportionally to the quantity gathered, or deal bonus harm based mostly on my gathered souls, with the profit that they received’t be spent if the strike kills my goal.
As you head via the areas, you’ll encounter the assorted Fae Lords who will give you their blessings – throughout our demo, I rely eight Lords in whole, at the very least to start out with. Every has their very own theme: King Oberon gives you fury bonuses and the power to summon damaging whirlwinds; Banshee Cliona allows you to weaken foes or hearth out further soul missiles as you assault; Frozen Witch Beira inflicts chills and freeze results. As a lover of crucial strikes for these massive harm numbers, I’m a fan of the boons of Lugh, the Hand of Destiny. Every Fae Lord additionally has an identical companion you may earn that can comply with you into battle.
You’ll begin out within the forest, however the environments get more and more fascinating as you progress. The second zone, the Cornwall Township, is full of Skaven-style rat beasties and options sludge puddles that can limit your capacity to sprint round safely. Past that lies the Deep Harbour, the place issues get extra eldritch and unsettling, with monster designs impressed by the Lovecraftian Cthulhu mythos.
Right here, Leonard factors out the crew’s experimentation with enemies within the unfavorable house, one thing I’m a selected fan of. In apply, this interprets to platforms separated by water which you can solely cross utilizing dashes or traversal expertise, and foes that stay in that water. It’s a design choice that provides every zone a definite really feel – one thing that’s additional amplified within the ultimate space, the fortress of Camelot. Make it there and also you’ll discover that even the common enemies really feel extra like mini-bosses, every boasting a number of assault patterns to be careful for.
Very like Hades, it’s within the boss fights the place Sworn’s fight actually shines – I get to see a showdown in opposition to Gawain, one among Arthur’s main Knights. The visible design of those is great, and there are some intelligent assaults which are designed to adapt if you happen to’re taking part in in co-op, similar to a sequence of monitoring projectiles that can every lock onto separate gamers while you deal with him in a crew.
Between runs, there are much more methods to develop progressively stronger together with the aforementioned weapon tweaking. There are 5 additional timber you may pursue – Life, Battle, Devotion, Treasure, and Wealth – every offering everlasting upgrades to all the things out of your beginning stats to the prospect that you simply’ll encounter rarer boons.
As a lot as Sworn could be very very like Hades, to the purpose it felt instantly acquainted in my palms from the second I began, I can’t deny that, between the setting, the power to play in co-op with as much as three further buddies, and the sheer quantity of depth and selection on provide, I’m moderately excited to play it. There’s clearly been a whole lot of cautious thought and love put into the best way to make each facet tick, and as somebody craving a brand new motion roguelike Sworn already has me hooked – I stored taking part in far past my unique appointment time, and would have stayed even longer if I didn’t produce other bookings to get to.
Sworn is about to launch in 2024. If you happen to’re tempted to test it out for your self, you may wishlist it on Steam to obtain a notification when it arrives. Alternatively, have a look via extra of one of the best fantasy video games in 2024, together with one of the best motion video games on PC proper now.
