Following the massive success of Hades in 2020, we’ve seen numerous video games try to 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 fundamental ideas and construction of top-of-the-line 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 degree, Sworn has all the important thing examine marks you’d count on from a sport within the Hades mould. There are 4 biomes you need to progress by 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 forged, and a dodge, and these are amplified with varied talents bestowed upon you by the Fae Lords. But, apart from how completely the world of Camelot matches this roguelike construction, what actually units Sworn aside is the sheer degree of depth on supply.
To start out with, Sworn provides you 4 completely 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, providing 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 aspect, there are a number of decisions 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 improbable quantity of selection right here, and every of the choices feels properly 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 varied nodes, every providing incremental boosts to its potential, you’ll encounter two ‘main’ ones that supply a alternative 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 primarily based on my gathered souls, with the profit that they gained’t be spent if the strike kills my goal.
As you head by the areas, you’ll encounter the varied Fae Lords who will give you their blessings – throughout our demo, I rely eight Lords in complete, no less than to begin with. Every has their very own theme: King Oberon provides you fury bonuses and the power to summon damaging whirlwinds; Banshee Cliona helps you to weaken foes or fireplace out further soul missiles as you assault; Frozen Witch Beira inflicts chills and freeze results. As a lover of important strikes for these massive harm numbers, I’m keen on the boons of Lugh, the Hand of Destiny. Every Fae Lord additionally has an identical companion you may earn that may comply with you into battle.
You’ll begin out within the forest, however the environments get more and more attention-grabbing as you progress. The second zone, the Cornwall Township, is crammed with Skaven-style rat beasties and options sludge puddles that may prohibit your means 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 workforce’s experimentation with enemies within the adverse house, one thing I’m a selected fan of. In apply, this interprets to platforms separated by water that you may solely cross utilizing dashes or traversal abilities, and foes that reside in that water. It’s a design determination that offers 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 towards Gawain, one among Arthur’s main Knights. The visible design of those is superb, and there are some intelligent assaults which are designed to adapt when you’re enjoying in co-op, comparable to a collection of monitoring projectiles that may every lock onto separate gamers whenever you deal with him in a workforce.
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 pieces out of your beginning stats to the prospect that you just’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 associates, and the sheer quantity of depth and selection on supply, I’m quite excited to play it. There’s clearly been lots of cautious thought and love put into easy methods to make each side tick, and as somebody craving a brand new motion roguelike Sworn already has me hooked – I stored enjoying far past my unique appointment time, and would have stayed even longer if I didn’t produce other bookings to get to.
Sworn is ready 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 by extra of the most effective fantasy video games in 2024, together with the most effective motion video games on PC proper now.
