Sat in pitch darkness in front of a big screen in a London hotel is where Hunted: The Demon Forge's big reveal takes place with Fargo talking us through the inspiration of games like Hexen and Heretic on the game's action adventure remit. Opening in an atmospheric, deserted town ravaged by a violent orc-like race known as the Wargar, Hunted is a title inspired by classic fantasy and the dungeon crawlers of yesteryear, drawing upon an RPG pedigree spanning more than twenty-five years of experience.
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| Caddoc and E'lara turn the male and female team-up on its head. It's E'lira who's the nutter, while Caddoc is the more restrained type. | The Wargar are psychotic creatures who run purely on instinct. This one is auditioning for American Idol. |
Harking all the way back to 1974 with D&D and the text-based MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) games of old, Hunted blends these traditional fantasy hallmarks with the accessibility of a crowd-pleasing action game like Gears of War, and although the game is still an RPG at heart, it's apparent that there's more to inXile's game than initially meets the eye.
Utilising the Unreal 3 Engine, Hunted: The Demon's Forge is a third-person co-op focused action adventure that takes traditional Tolkien-esque fantasy iconography and builds a Gears-style action romp around it, using familiar gameplay mechanics such as a dynamic cover system. inXile are calling Hunted “co-op at a distance”, which means each player can happily run off and explore without fear of leaving their partner twisting in the wind if they should happen to run into trouble.
If you or your partner find that you do become low on health, it's possible to administer a regenerative vial to heal one another regardless of your proximity. You're also able to combine spells or 'Battle Charge' to increase their effects and take down the game's tougher enemies. Heroes Caddoc and E'lara - a male and female pairing - each boast differing abilities that create multiple options for a variety of tactics during battle.
Caddoc carries a short sword and shield where E'lara packs a bow and arrow, and combining your attacks with Battle Charge renders you both temporarily invincible allowing you to wade in and unleash your enhanced magic power. Being able to freeze an enemy with an ice spell before smashing them into fragments with a high-velocity arrow is just one such (admittedly quite basic) tactic you might choose to employ, but there are plenty of other strategies at your disposal thanks in part to the optional ability to switch characters at designated checkpoints.
Despite being very different characters, the pair enjoy a close relationship tinged with sexual tension and regular exchanges of dialogue barbed with sarcasm. Where E'lara is a bloodthirsty warrior who uses her bow and arrow to puncture skulls from range, Caddoc is an introspective, thoughtful fellow, who nonetheless still relishes any chance to dig in with brutal melee attacks upon foes. And while they might not break the mould as far as fantasy characters are concerned, there's something intrinsically likeable about the duo, which is incredibly fortunate as you'll be spending the duration of the game with them.
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| A Battle Charge in full effect. The ability renders you temporarily invulnerable as well as doubling the effectiveness of magic. | E'lira's bow is huge and she knows how to use it. Putting an arrow into an enemy's face in slow-mo is ultra satisfying. |
Caddoc's shields degrade and can be broken, so he'll need to collect new ones on his travels, although there are plenty dropped by the savage creatures the duo face in the demo. E'lara meanwhile, needs to keep a supply of arrows, which she can pull from the punctured flesh of a fallen enemy and light in any nearby fire source or imbue with magic to create frost arrows for instance. Regardless of which character you play as however, the combat is always suitably uncompromising and bloody with your character being splashed with a film of gore as they tear their way through the monstrous hordes, performing violent finishing moves while receiving wounds that can result in permanent battle scars.
Centring upon Caddoc and E'lara's quest to collect crystals for the powerful, ethereal spirit known as Seraphim, the story deals with aspects of sacrifice and addiction as the Wargar are obsessed with an infectious liquid substance known as 'sleg' which when consumed, turns them into even more twisted and violent versions of what they already are. They're using sleg to enslave the inhabitants of the town, imprisoning them in various dungeons across Kala Moor – Hunted's fantasy world.
During the narrative, there are plenty of opportunities for exploration and challenging – though mostly optional - puzzles to overcome that grant extra rewards such as more crystals that in turn grant new spells in addition to the usual gold and other loot. You might even find captive townspeople, who you can either rescue or execute as you see fit, which can bring about certain moral consequences. In the demo, the duo release a grateful prisoner who then dashes into the open mandibles of a gigantic beetle creature, but had he been killed by Caddoc or E'lara, the outcome could have been quite different.
Designed entirely around the co-op experience, Hunted includes multiple routes that encourage differing tactics, which the intelligent partner AI will adapt to in single-player. For example, the AI will recognise what you're trying to do if say you choose to execute a flanking manoeuvre and will aid you accordingly. If you're low on health, the AI will also provide you with a health vial before triggering Battle Charge to help reduce enemy numbers. Pretty clever.
Online, co-op is a drop in/drop out affair complemented by a robust matchmaking system that ensures you can play with your favourite character, who remains your character even if you choose to switch at a checkpoint. You needn't worry about another player tinkering with your skill points or ruining your custom abilities and items as they simply won't be able to just as you'll be unable to mess with another character's abilities. Loot and other items are shared between players and remain persistent between your single-player and co-op campaigns, which you can almost seamlessly swap between.
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| That nasty fire demon. Co-op tactics are essential to overcome the bigger, tougher enemies like these. | A levitate spell in action. Holding foes in the air like this makes them a ripe target for one of E'lira's arrows. |
Displaying an immense scale and remarkable level of detail in its environments, with labyrinthine tunnels giving way to chatty faces hewn into rock, choked by enormous vines and overgrowth to cavernous exterior arenas or open interior chambers where encounters with larger enemies occur. It's in one such chamber that a battle with a looming skeletal fire demon takes place, putting up a relatively staunch fight against the pair, reinforcing the need for teamwork as Caddoc and E'lara combine spells to send the monster back to hell. Once the demon is weakened by a timely Battle Charge, Caddoc tackles the fiery beast head on with a God of War-style QTE that sees him stab it in the neck, killing the monster in gratifyingly visceral fashion.
As the exciting presentation draws to a close, we've seen only a glimpse of what Hunted: The Demon's Forge has to offer, but there's clear potential inherent in the game's deeply dark fantasy world that's a welcome blend of blood-soaked combat, thoughtful puzzling and good, old classic dungeon crawling. It's a bold mix that inXile hope will attract both the old-school player raised on traditional fantasy and the bloodthirsty action gamer whose diet normally consists of puncturing skulls with a sharp blade in slow-motion.
