Hellraid Preview - E3 2014
Battle the undead armies of long lost catacombs
Polish developer Techland, who most know best for Dead Island and Call of Juarez, is back with Hellraid, a First-person hack-n-slash dungeon crawler in the vein of Skyrim dungeons with multiplayer, to give you a simplistic comparison.
Hellraid tells the story of You, raider of hells (or gothic catacombs, swamps, and jungles) who embarks on a quest to rid the world of evil spirits, banishing them back to whence they came - Hell if you were wondering. And there are three modes in which you can achieve this: single player, 4-player co-op, and Arena mode.
We were treated to a demo of Single player, and began in Gothic-inspired catacombs rendered in beautiful detail, replete with aged stone and gruesome carved figurines adorning the walls. We were in the catacombs to locate a monk, who just so happened to have the dread armies of the abyss after him too, that were doing everything in their power to stop us meeting. During the demo, we had a chance to see the different instruments of slaughter at our fingertips. Weapons such as trusty axes, rapiers, long swords, and insanely large and devastating hammers. Controls appeared relatively simple; you had your normal attacks and power attacks that consumed rechargeable stamina. You could also dodge out of the way when a group of skeletons came too close, or a necromage began launching fireballs at you. We could also dish out the magical damage ourselves, with the use of different elemental staffs. One acted like a flamethrower, while another was able to send icy spears out of a section of the ground.
Around our relatively linear catacomb jaunt were varieties of chests that spat out weapons, armour, and health and mana potions, as well as gold - usual RPG fare. You can assign weapons to various shortcuts, making switching between play-styles to suit your enemies easy and on the fly. Say if you're fighting a horde of skeletons, then it's easier using a large, sweeping weapon to deal with them, or to help break an enemy's guard. An enemy that's taken to higher ground would require a long-range magic spell to be dealt with.
Aside from shambling skeletons, there were also larger foes. For example the giant, weapon wielding Blinded (with a helmet nailed to his skull), which acted as mini-bosses ripped from the pages of medieval fantasy lore. These required a little more innovation to deal with, making use of dodging, magic, and power weapons to deal damage in-between their sweeping attacks. The combat, especially during boss battles, seemed rather cathartic - hits felt like they were landing with each sickening crunch of slick slash. But there's more than one way to purify evil than smashing its head with a hammer: players are able to locate cursed shrines, which they can then purify.
As for story, Techland claimed that, though it may seem a little crazy, it all works, and the way in which this story is delivered to us is through cuts-scenes, character dialogue, the world itself, and stray literature dotted around the levels—so it's what we're used to.
As it stands, Hellraid seems like a familiar experience, and anyone who's played a First-person, hack-and-slash dungeon crawler should expect nothing new at the moment. However, only time and the finished game can show us whether Hellraid breaks the mold. Perhaps where the game will shine is in its multiplayer modes, where up to four of you can band together, looting and killing to your heart's content. The arena mode, with its ratcheting difficulty all the way up to the ominous "nightmare" mode, may provide the level of insanely frustrating difficulty in the vein of Dark Souls. So, for now, maybe it's too soon to start polishing your broadsword, at least until Hellraid is released in 2015 for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.