After spending an hour with Smoke and Sacrifice in March, Samuel described it as like "Don't Starve as a dark fantasy RPG", which is something I can get on board with. I like the hand-painted art, as well as the idea of taking a survival game with crafting and making it more focused and narrative driven. The game now has a release date of May 31, so there's not long to wait until we find out if it's any good.
You play as Sachi, a woman who sacrifices her child to the Sun Tree, which has replaced the lost light of the failing sun and is the only thing keeping her community's land fertile while the rest of the world turns to ice. But Sachi soon discovers a "dark secret", leading her to an underworld on a quest to find out what's going on, and what happened to her child.
You journey across the world, taking on quests, defeating beasts and crafting items to stay alive. You need a lantern to survive at night, for example, otherwise you'll be consumed by the smoky darkness. Don't expect an easy game—save points will be infrequently dotted around the world, so you'll have to make sure you're fully tooled-up before venturing into hostile areas.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is its living game world: Samuel described a time where two creatures started fighting each other independently, leaving him to swoop in and pick up the spoils. It's also a big mish-mash of themes, which means you'll get hulking mechs alongside giant porcupines and jellyfish-like creatures called polyps. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.
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