Before we go into the details, you may not know what the Square Enix Collective is. Here’s the official description “Collective is a curated platform that enables creators to post ideas, and gamers to judge whether those ideas should become reality or not. Every idea that’s successful with the community is checked and helped by Square Enix,”. So long story short, you most likely won’t find the next Goat Simulator here.

Moving on! Square Enix Collective have today announced the success of the Kickstarter campaign for the upcoming PlayStation 4 and PC “myth weaving rpg”, Moon Hunters. Starting out with a $45,000 CAD goal, the project not only exceeded it’s initial funding less than 48 hours but has continued to rake it in. Its campaign now sits pretty at $108,089 CAD.

Moon Hunters first drew the eye of Square Enix when Phil Elliot of the Square Enix Collective spotted it. He said, “Moon Hunters caught my eye very early on with its great visual style and design bursting with personality.” The 1-4 player action rpg is currently in development by Kitfox Games, a development part based in Montreal Canada.

Set to publish the latest entry into the Dragon Age series (being preceded by Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II) is BioWare’s parent company, Electronic Arts (Battlefield and Need for Speed franchise).

Dragon Age: Inquisition, which will be running in part on the powerful Frostbite 3 Engine, is currently set to launch on October 7th of 2014 across multiple platforms, both last and current gen via retail and digital distribution. The title is expected to launch on Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Classes
• 5. Characters

Development

Originally known as Dragon Age III: Inquisition, Mark Darragh (Dragon Age Executive Producer) penned an open letter in which he confirmed that the game would be dropping the “III” from its title and would thus be officially known as Dragon Age: Inquisition from that point onwards.

The development of Dragon Age: Inquisition was first revealed to the public (although it had been known to have existed prior to this) at some time in September of 2012 when the Executive Producer of Dragon Age dispatched an open letter the game was indeed in development and that its official title was to be Dragon Age: Inquisition. The reveal came with information that the game had been in development for a whole 18 months prior to the writing of his letter.

However, prior to this on May 19th of 2011, Biowares Creative Lead (Alistair Mcnall) informally (and perhaps unintentionally) announced the game on his Twitter feed when he tweeted, “I’m looking for exceptional environment artists join me at #BioWare Edmonton, Canada to work on ‘DragonAge3 #gamejobs #jobs #3D #artists”.

Despite both fan and industry predictions that the game was to be delayed whilst other titles under BioWare and Electronic Arts were worked on, having said “Dragon Age III’s development will not be delayed by BioWare’s other games.” and “We will try to bring some closure to Hawke’s story but likely not in a playable form. Originally we had planned to do an expansion pack but had to stop to focus on what we are working on now.” The predictions were however proven true with the Q4 2013 launch being changed and set as a Fall of 2014 launch.

Given the mixed feedback that was received from Dragon Age II (that mostly focused on the negative and repetitive nature of the game or its comparatively less interesting plot), Mark Darragh asked the fans of Dragon Age series to provide them with feedback on the game and to mention features that they would like to see implemented or removed from the next instalment (that was at the time not even announced).

Story

While not much is known about the full plot of Dragon Age, here’s what we do know. The game is going to be set in the land of Thedas as well as parts of Ferelden and Orlais. The narrative driving force for the game will be investigating a tear in the veil of reality leading to a breach into the Fade (a metaphysical realm).

Bioware have mentioned that a central part of the game will be “saving the world from itself.” whilst it is in the throes of an all out war. The Warden (presumably the Grey Warden from Dragon Age: Origins) and the Hawke (the player’s character from Dragon Age II) are said to hold important roles in Dragon Age: Inquisition according to Mark Darragh, but at this time they haven’t revealed any information regarding what this might mean. As the story progresses players will be able to travel to different regions of the game world, one such region being the Tevinter Imperium, the land of the Magocracy.

Gameplay

Many aspects of the action role playing game genre are found within the Dragon Age franchise and many of them are to be implemented in Dragon Age: Inquisition as well as some of the older game mechanics being combined.

As players have come to expect, customisation is indeed a returning feature to Dragon Age: Inquisition. One of the most important returning features is the return of multiple playable races. The player can use either a Male and Female character of different races, including Dwarves and Elves. Listening to fan feedback, Dragon Age: Inquisition will also finally offer the player the chance to play as one of the Qunari, the mighty warrior people of Qun.

Combat will have a fundamentally different flow and gameplay core than that of previous titles that focused on queuing skills, building custom AI commands for NPCs and switching between characters to perform unique skills or rapidly pressing buttons to perform combos and switching between characters to best suit your scenario. A feature that was introduced in Dragon Age: Origins on the PC was the overhead tactical view that allowed for better strategic placement of characters is returning in Dragon Age: Inquisition much to the pleasure of fans.

Player choice is an important returning feature with The Inquisitor sometimes making decisions that will lock down entire parts of the game world in the wake of their decisions, Bioware have promised that the ramifications of your choices will be significant.

Classes

We are yet to receive concrete information regarding the classes that will be appearing in Dragon Age: Inquisition. It is however safe to assume that the normal classes will appear; Warrior, Mage, Rogue etc.

Characters

The Inquisitor – The player’s character and main protagonist is the leader of the mysterious Inquisition.

Alistair – Alistair is a competent warrior that serves the order of the Grey Wardens and was a companion of the protagonist from Dragon Age: Origins. Depending on what choices the player made during specific missions, Alistair may now be the king of Ferelden.

Iron Bull – Iron Bull is a Tal-Vashoth, one of the Qunari who has abandoned the Qun. Iron Bull lives his life as a mercenary.

Morrigan – Morrigan is an apostate mage that is well versed in the ways of magic and is a lethal combatant with a phlegmatic personality. Like Alistair and Leliana, she was a companion of the Hero of Ferelden. At the end of the fifth blight she vanished mysteriously, only to resurface years later as an Arcane advisor to Empress Celene.

Sera – Sera is a formidable archer of Elven descent.

Solas – Like Sera, Solas is of the Elven people. Solas is however, an apostate mage.

Varric Tethras – Varric is a dwarven rogue, merchantman and companion of the Champion of Kirkwall.

Thamond – Thamond is a human captain  serving within the ranks of the Inquisition.

Vivienne – Vivienne is a former senior enchanter of the mages circle that joins Inquisition and its ranks to help the other mages.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

ArcaniA is the fourth major entry in the Gothic franchise, originally a PC RPG from Piranha Bytes. ArcaniA was the first instalment under new developer Spellbound, and this shift in developer saw a change in style to a more accessible action-focused RPG experience. Though the fourth Gothic game is inevitably more accessible than its predecessors, a great deal of the magic was lost in this transition, a complaint that was held up in the game’s lukewarm critical reception. The Complete Tale marks the series’ debut on PS3, but is also coming to Xbox 360 and PC.

The original tale of Gothic 4 is high fantasy all over, revelling in as many clichés as possible. There’s a mad king on a rampage dominating other kingdoms by force and your character, a farmer who finds his village raided by this evil king, sets out an a well worn revenge quest. Though it won’t win any marks for originality, the story is presented pleasantly enough. The problem comes in the form of its pacing, something the writers evidently had little regard from. The humble beginnings are rushed through, with an engagement, pregnancy and murder of a childhood sweetheart being rushed through in the first twenty minutes of gameplay. This early story soon gives way to a heavier combat focus, one that is seldom welcome.

The fights are reasonably simple, revolving around a single attack and a block/dodge command. The emphasis is on real time action, something that makes the gameplay accessible and shallow in equal measure. New melee attacks unlock as you level up your hero, but these fail to add much depth to the hack and slash affair that is ArcaniA’s combat. You can also pick off enemies from afar using magic or a bow and arrow/crossbow, if you prefer a hands off approach. Whilst this adds some variety to the proceedings, aiming ranged attacks can be a finicky affair, one that is further complicated by ArcaniA’s mostly broken lock on feature. Holding L2 shifts the camera to lock on to your target. Whilst cinematic and visually pleasing, auto-aiming tends to force your arrows to miss more often than not, a frustration exacerbated by the two second delay that occurs between you holding the trigger and the camera actually locking on.

The engine is fast enough to keep combat reasonably exciting, but repetitive enemy designs and a limp levelling system soon turn ArcaniA into a chore. Progression is a classless affair, a design decision that inevitably removes the usual frustration associated with irreversible progression choices. It winds up being a double-edged sword though, stripping the game of a great deal of replay value and customisation. With all skill trees heading in roughly the same direction, even a snappy pace of progression is not enough to keep things particularly interesting. 

These combat flaws become even more pronounced in the Fall of Setariff expansion. Without much story to hold it together, the game inevitably falls apart. Though there is some semblance of scenario to the Fall of Setariff, it lacks the build up of the vanilla ArcaniA story, instead just dumping your protagonist into a mess of combat. The first hour of gameplay consists of about five seconds of dialogue hiding amongst endless fight sequences. The fact that you start off with a huge amount of the game’s skills already unlocked further reduces the sense of satisfaction. The lack of dialogue options also makes the minimal scripting even more obvious. It’s a problem that is further highlighted by the presentation of dialogue. It appears in a text box that gives the illusion of dialogue choices and response selection, but the only options you get are continuing a conversation or ending it. Even basic conversation choices would have been more welcome than this hollow excuse for action RPG mediocrity.

The story, levelling and combat are all fairly flat in ArcaniA: The Complete Tale, but the presentation is a more up and down affair. Animations are fairly competent, offering a decent sense of momentum to combat, though jumping looks oddly “floaty.” Weather is a surprisingly impressive visual effect, shifting quickly to rain showers and glorious sunlight randomly. Countering this though are some dastardly draw distances and character models that are, in truth, terrifying. Uncanny barely begins to describe them. Especially the glowing teeth and eyes. Ouch. 

For the price, ArcaniA offers a great deal of content, especially with the inclusion of the Fall of Setariff add on. It’s quantity over quality though; by a long way. There are plenty of other action RPGs out there that are more accessible, better presented and offer deeper gameplay than ArcaniA. I’ve been pretty brutal in my appraisal of ArcaniA: The Complete Tale and, whilst it certainly isn’t the worst game out there, it’s a flat and uninspired title that keeps feeling dated and out of sync with modern gaming; a sensation that remains regardless of how many hours you choose to invest.

 This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3.

Blizzard has opened the gates of hell for players to be able to Pre-order Diablo III on the PlayStation 3 starting today.

US Pre-orders – http://us.battle.net/d3/en/console/

EU Pre-orders – http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/console/

Here is what the Mike Morhaime CEO of Blizzard has to say about it:

“We’ve poured blood, sweat, and hellfire into creating an epic Diablo III experience for PlayStation gamers. In addition to including all the improvements from the PC version over the past year, we’ve made several updates to Diablo III for play on the PS3. We got a ton of positive feedback from players who tried the game at PAX East, and we can’t wait to get it into everyone’s hands later this year.”

Press images of the Box-art:

Pre-order – Bonus Item (Infernal Helm)

Those who pre-order Diablo III will receive an in-game item called Infernal Helm, which will grant players a EXP boost to their character as they slay the demons of Tristram.

Diablo III was announced for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 at Sony’s PlayStation 4 reveal conference earlier this year on February 20th 2013 after Blizzard announced a partnership with Sony.

Excited for Diablo III on the PlayStation 3, and want to know when will the PlayStation 4 version come about? Stay tuned on GamingBolt for more news regarding Diablo III and future Blizzard titles.

VG247 report that 38 Studios website is back up and running. Original noticed by RPGsite, and discovered by Bitsnark that the site contains a hidden message.

“Amid the maelstrom of recent press, we realize it’s unlikely you’re here to visit the new occupants; namely, us. Meh. Our apologies. That being said, if you’re looking for updates on the former tenants: Curt Shilling, Green Monster Games, etc. Try here. Otherwise, it’s business as usual. Please excuse the mess while we move in.”

The website has three site buttons, each button gives you three options: 38 Studios, Excuse the Mess and Relaunch.

Also, RPGsite noticed the 38 Studios website different maintenance messages pop up. The following messages were: “please excuse the mess, we’re moving in” and “relaunch”.

We believe that the site domain has been bought by someone else or this might be some sort of viral marketing. Either way, it’s nice to see 38 Studios website to see back up again in some form. We’ll keep you posted for any more updates here at GamingBolt.

We know that there is no party chat capabilities on the Xbox 360 version of the upcoming game Dark Souls.  That alone is quite a bummer as Xbox 360 gamers have grown used to using the party chat instantly letting them socially talk with multiple people at once who are not necessarily playing the same game they are.  Not to mention ability to jump from one group of friends to the next simply by party hopping, and anyone that does not see this as a great social feature for gaming is… well.. ..Party Chat is good! Of course there are exceptions where you don’t want people to cheat using it, but games like the Call of Duty franchise have fixed to where you can’t use it in specific modes.

I am afraid the real issue hear is that according to Kotaku, their is not even an in game chat feature.  How can you make a 4 player co-op game where no one can talk to each other.  Kotaku writes “… the game does not support player-to-player voice chat over Xbox Live. No real surprises there. However, if players engage a Party Chat session, Dark Souls will instantly kick you out of your current game and boot you to the main menu…”.  I really hope that this is wrong and that there is at least in game chat otherwise I don’t see the game doing well.  There is always room for an update though I suppose.

Darkspore is now out for the PC and is a new kind of Action-RPG game.  The game have different co-op campaigns as well as PvP along with an extremely in depth customization feature.  Of course there is online multiplayer which can be played cooperatively.  Darkspore has many heroes to choose from with even more enemies as well as having literally thousands of collectibles and upgrades.  Check out the launch trailer below.

Darkspore is an online Action RPG, in which players battle co-operatively across alien worlds against a deadly foe, as well as test their skills in multiplayer matches against players around the globe. Collect your army of genetic heroes, customize them with upgrades, and build dominating tactical squads.

We recently got a chance to preview and play Hunted: The Demon’s Forge in NYC, my favorite place I might add for a Bethesda event.  The event is where we also got a chance to play as well as preview and interview with the development team for Brink.  We were super impressed with Hunted: The Demo’s Forge though and its co-op intense gameplay.  The game is a dark fantasy, action RPG that uses the Unreal engine to make this a graphically pleasant third-person game.  Playing as either E’lara, a ranged weapon expert, or Caddoc, a master swordsman, you must journey on a dark path to learn why innocent villagers have been disappearing in a world where the dark ages have brought evil creatures from the underground.

Starting off, we entered the tutorial part of the game where we learned the basics of the game.  There is a guidance system to keep you on track similar to the one in the Fable sequels, as with the click of the joystick shot out a gold trail through the air showing the way to next destination or current mission objective.  You can switch between ranged and melee weaponry with the touch of a button.  There is also a simple two button combo system making the gameplay mechanics very easy and user friendly even when it involves magic or spells which both characters can do.  The movement and cover system was very reminiscent of Gears of War in the best way possible.

Jumping out of the tutorial and into our first mission, was what put me and my partner together that I played with.  The nice thing about this 2 player co-op is that you don’t always have to play as a certain character, as the developers have creatively made obelisks every so often where you can switch to the other character as will your partner do to, if you both choose to.  I thought that aspect alone was a unique feature that really made the game more interesting especially since each character has their own separate abilities they must use for the game to progress.  However that is far from the peek of the innovation we saw in the game when it comes to the co-op aspect.  First of all, Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is heavily based on the co-op and what I mean by that is, you are not simply playing the game along side each other, but you actually need each other most of the time in the game, whether it is to heal your partner or have them use a unique attribute to progress in the game.  The developers, inXile, though were keen enough to make it so that you don’t have to be standing right beside your partner to play the game, although it doesn’t hurt.  You can heal your downed partner from nearly across the map by hurling a magical ball of energy, reviving them.  Many puzzles as well as collecting things can be long distance oriented really adding an edge to the co-op that I have never seen before.

Items are based on your stats, so for example I can do more damage with a certain sword than lets the other character dependent on my stats.  The magic is split into two types, casting and spells while Caddoc can use more general magic, E’lara on the other hand tends to have more arrow based magic capabilities even though both characters carry bow’s.  E’lara has the classic bow while Caddoc uses a crossbow and both ranged weapons require ammo/arrows.  With weapon based magic there is also a battle charge where your magic goes to your partner.

There is a looting system and gold is the general currency in the game.  You can replay cut-scenes to explain a mission again to you.  The enemies range in different types, like heavy, weak or fast while enemies spawn depending on how long you are in an area.  Enemies can either use magic or weaponry against you while there is a class of sub-bosses as well as a fully fledged boss.  Traps can be set on the ground and going back to specific abilities, E’lara can set her arrows on fire with different color flames that are needed to progress in the game or even finding secrets.  There are also challenges in the game that are unlocked by doing things like reviving your partner a number of times.  Unfortunately, in RPG tradition your health does not regenerate and requires health potions you must consume.  The can be drastic environment changes as well as parts of the environment being interactive.

The general graphics during gameplay are very impressive as well as the character detail between their tattoos and clothing.  The armor you wear changes as you progress through different levels.  The lighting effects were well done and the CGI rendered cut-scenes were stunning in addition to them not looking so different from the actual gameplay.  Another cool aspect was that I noticed after being covered in blood from battle, I still wore the blood of my enemies during the following cut-scene.  By far though the co-op intense aspects noted are what I feel will make this game amazing in addition to the 5.1 surround sound optimization and the stunning graphics.  Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is looking good and might just be the co-op game that defines them all.  The game will be out on May 10th, 2011 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.

It was announced in a press release that “The Mummy Online will be a “free-to-play Action-RPG MMO game.” In the game, players will “take on heroic roles as adventure seekers.” It has also been announced that the game is set in early 20th century Egypt.

No specefic release date has yet been announced.