The Xbox Live Games With Gold titles for December have been revealed and they’re a pretty big step up from November. Keep in mind that with the New Xbox One Experience adding backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 titles, Xbox One players will now have access to a wider range of free games going forward.

Xbox One players get their hands on The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, one of the better Diablo clones out there, throughout December. Meanwhile, Eidos Montreal’s meh reboot of Thief will be available from December 16th to January 15th 2016.

Xbox 360 gamers are in for a treat – along with Castlestorm (available until December 15th) and Sacred 3 (available from December 16th to December 31st), they’ll get their hands on Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising from December 16th to 31st.

And for Xbox One players, this means five free games for December. What are your thoughts on the Free Games With Gold offerings next month? Let us know in the comments.

As we can see from the above trailer, this new Arcane Mechanic class is not one to be trifled with. He is fully capable of tacking individual foes head on, or hanging back and luring entire groups of enemies into traps to be taken out unawares. As the trailer states, “When you can rely neither on swords nor magic, show them the power of science!”

Here’s the full rundown of what the DLC grants you:

– The Arcane Mechanic character class
– All new class specific gear that comes hand in hand with the class
– A whole new set of unique skills and perks
– A new tactical game play element: traps and deployed mechanical creatures
– Three all new class-specific quests, and two brand new maps in the single player campaign mode.

The new DLC will cost you $3.99.

Speaking to Orsolya Toth, Community Manager at Neocore games, we talked about the inspirations for the game, the decision to avoid generic monsters and locations like Transylvania and whether we’ll be seeing anything from the developer on the PS4 or Xbox One.

Ravi Sinha: Firstly, regarding the critical success of the game, did you expect it to be appreciated so much? Especially considering the amount of AAA hack and slash titles coming out on a yearly basis.

To be honest, the game’s success surpassed all of our expectations, and of course we are extremely happy about the amount of positive reviews the game received. It’s always nice to see that players enjoy our game, especially if we take the heavy competition into consideration. With so many ARPGs released frequently, we are very happy to see that a lot of people chose Van Helsing.

"When creating a game based on the style of a book (however loosely), the danger of slipping off the slope and creating an abomination is always there."

Ravi Sinha: The design choices for Van Helsing were heavily skewed towards The Mysterious Stranger, which became the default character model for the hero. How far does this representation influence the overall tone of the game and the character?

The Mysterious Stranger was one of the three options for Van Helsing’s appearance when we asked our fans to decide how our hero should look. We are glad that they chose this design, because this was the character that stood the closest to our hearts. As over 70 percent of the community voted for this character, it was clearly a win-win situation. This decision influences Van Helsing’s character, dialogue, gear, and pretty much his whole style very heavily. Also, the character of the Mysterious Stranger fits into the dark, noir-ish game world very well. The humorous quotes and Van Helsing’s frequent quarrels with Lady Katarina are also heavily influenced by the style of the Stranger.

Ravi Sinha: Following up on the events of Bram Stoker’s Dracula without outright relying on it, how difficult was it to walk this tight-rope? Was there always a danger of not successfully fulfilling the intended vision or going ridiculously over-the-top and disregarding the source novel’s best aspects (like the abysmal Van Helsing film)?

When creating a game based on the style of a book (however loosely), the danger of slipping off the slope and creating an abomination is always there. However, we only used Stoker’s Dracula as a starting point to fill a freshly created world with our own ideas. This way, our hands weren’t tied so tightly and we had a lot of room for our own implementations.

"For now, we do not plan to port Van Helsing over to next-gen consoles. However, this does not mean that in the future, we won't plan on doing so. "

Ravi Sinha: Where did the inspiration come from for the gothic-noir tone of the game, and the fictional setting of Borgova?

There were plenty of literary pieces and movies that affected our content designer, the most important sources are: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (the movie and the novel), Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hide, all sorts of classical gothic stories, The Brotherhood of the Wolf (French movie) and Vampire Hunter D (the anime). To create the gothic world of Borgova, we drew a lot from Budapest; we were inspired by a lot of buildings and places that represent the capital’s style. Just to mention a few: the Heroes’ Square, the St. Stephen’s Basilica and the Royal Palace were all notable sources of inspiration.

Ravi Sinha: The creatures in the game are a result of technology gone wrong. Why not have Van Helsing go about travelling the world – particularly Transylvania – to just hunt Dracula and other mythical creatures?

The most important reason of this decision is that we did not want Van Helsing to hunt the “generic”, traditional fantasy monsters that can be found everywhere. We wanted to create original monsters, so we let our designer and graphics team’s imagination free, and the result was an army of monsters that were new, original and various. Based on fan feedback, this was a successful decision because the players love hunting down these new creatures.

Ravi Sinha: The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is currently available for PC and is planned for the Xbox 360. Why not on the PlayStation 3? Will it be available at some point in the near future?

This is something we haven’t given a serious thought yet. For now, we aren’t planning a PlayStation release.

Ravi Sinha: As you are aware, both Microsoft and Sony have announced next generation consoles. Given that they both have PC like architecture, do you guys plan to port over the game to the PS4 and Xbox One?

For now, we do not plan to port Van Helsing over to next-gen consoles. However, this does not mean that in the future, we won’t plan on doing so. We always keep an eye out on freshly opened fields of market where we can advance to.

Ravi Sinha: Where does Van Helsing go from here? Are we going to see him back soon?

Van Helsing has a lot left to explore and he will set off to a new journey pretty soon as we have already announced The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II. So, the show will go on! 🙂

A big thanks to Orsolya Toth from Neocore Games for setting this interview up.

Rather than controlling the famous monster hunter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula himself, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing casts you as his son. Though you technically create your hero as a result, this basically means picking a colour for your cloak and an appropriate name. More customisation would have been appreciated, but Van Helsing places more of an emphasis on your combat abilities, with plentiful skill trees and unlock paths allowing you to make plenty of gameplay related choices for your character’s development.

Gameplay is very similar to other ARPGs such as Torchlight and Diablo, complete with copious clicking on enemies and more skills than you can shake a stick at. Van Helsing allows you to switch between ranged and melee weapons quickly, though you can’t use both simultaneously. Each weapon type has a large list of abilities for you to acquire, each possessing lots of different power-ups you can choose to invest in. Power-ups are manually activated abilities that modify a particular skill, so pressing the 1 key a couple of times can turn your standard sword attack into a life stealing menace. You build up rage as you fight that must then be spent to use these abilities though, so it never becomes overpowered but still adds a layer of depth to an otherwise conventional combat mechanic.

The problem with having so many skill variants is that Van Helsing stumbles in letting you control all of them. You can only assign two skills at any one time and, though you can swap between two skill banks with a press of the tab key, this still only means you have four skills available at any one time. Control issues get worse when you consider the potion shortcut keys. Q and W are used to activate health and mana potions but, being so close to the tab key meant I wound up wasting more potions than I care to say. Granted, this is more me being clumsy with a keyboard than anything else, but it still highlights a few problems with the default controls. You have some control over key bindings to alleviate this problem, but you can’t assign skill hot keys in the same way you could in Diablo 2, meaning I always felt I couldn’t quite engage my enemies in the way I wanted to in Van Helsing.

Outside of a few control issues, Van Helsing’s combat is intense and rewarding. The game does have a tendency to spam hordes of enemies at you, but with these large numbers comes a great sense of satisfaction when you best a tricky horde. The monster designs themselves are also a cut above other titles in the genre, with the 19^th century European setting carving out a pleasant niche for The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. The Gothic themes shouldn’t put you off though, as the game never takes itself too seriously. This is best shown in Katarina, Van Helsing’s ghost sidekick. Having been bound to the Van Helsing family by your protagonist’s father, she follows you throughout the game almost unwillingly, regularly throwing in a quip to undermine your progress. The script is tight and playful, with Katarina’s dialogue eclipsing her questionable voice acting. This sharp wit is a high in Van Helsing, always offering a nice break from the intensity of the shoot and loot gameplay.

Katarina also acts as your partner in combat. You can equip her with much of the same loot as your hero and, as you can level her up in any way you please, it allows you to specialise both characters into any party composition you see fit. Having Katarina as an off-tank allowed me to DPS range the crap out of my Van Helsing but, if you find yourself making mistakes with your levelling, you can find one of the many vendors who will reset your skill points for a small fee. Van Helsing’s lenient checkpoints also allow the game to remain accessible in this fashion without compromising the difficulty of combat. This is what Diablo 3 should have done. Take note Blizzard.

It is a good thing Katarina is present as, without her, you’d have to rely on the game’s multiplayer to get any help in combat. Sadly, the multiplayer in Van Helsing is a poor mockery of a genre so geared for cooperative play. The server list is painfully sparse and, even when you do get a game, glitches never present in the single player mode suddenly appear. I don’t know if it’s a problem with Steam or the game itself, but getting kicked back to the desktop so regularly was a pain I could’ve done without. Even if you can get over the glitches and find a great game, the lack of player definition makes hectic battles turn into a complete mess of indistinguishable character models. At least the Van Helsing models have differing colours and weapons, whilst each players’ Katarina joins in looking identical, often creating heaps of confusion.

Online faults aside, Van Helsing is plenty of fun when playing solo. The quest for random loot is always engaging, even when new gear doesn’t quite have the diversity of the arsenal found in Torchlight and Diablo. Still, a snappy script and well paced progression allows Van Helsing room to become suspiciously addictive. It also helps that it sells for a budget price whilst offering stores of content for the dedicated. A big game for a small price makes everyone a happy gamer.

The main thorn in Van Helsing’s side is a lack of ambition. Certainly this matches its budget price tag, but you can’t help but feel Van Helsing could have been something really special if a few more risks were taken. The combat is fun and addicting, but hugely by the book. The graphics are polished and the setting unique, but much of the screen real estate is taken up by a somewhat clunky interface. If Van Helsing played a little less by the book these things could be totally forgiven. As it stands though, the only risk taken is with the script, a self aware and clever affair that never intrudes too much on the successful blend of loot and combat. Even with its flaws, NeoCore Games have achieved what Diablo 3 really should have done. No expectations lead to no disappointment in The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing and, whilst it is a safe game, it is still a very enjoyable one.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Game Overview:

Featuring young Van Helsing, son of the famed monster hunter, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing sends players to Borgovia, the capital of the infamous kingdom at the edge of the known continent.

The game is available on the Xbox 360 and PC.

Check out the video walkthrough of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below.

For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing focuses on the famous vampire hunter’s son, and takes inspiration from Bram Stoker’s Dracula in that regard. Except this Van Helsing is fighting off vampires and demons in a steampunk, gothic noir world.

As the home base for players, you’ll be able to store loot, trade with NPCs, travel between places and even mix concotions in the alchemist’s lab. There’s even a tower defense mini-game to engage in when the lair comes under attack. But traps and other nefarious devices assure that you’ll have the upper hand.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing will be releasing on May 22nd for PC via Steam, and will be available for $14.99. The game is currently up for pre-order, and can be pre-purchased here. Early adopters will gain instant access to the beta on purchasing so sharpen those stakes.

NeocoreGames PR Manager Orsolya Toth stated that, “We’re excited to introduce our fans to the supernatural and mysterious world of Van Helsing. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is a unique and dark story told within a complex action-RPG that provides thrilling cooperative gameplay.”

Based on the famous novel by Bram Stoker, namely Dracula, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing follows the famed vampire hunter’s son taking on the forces of darkness. Players can level up their character and choose from varying skill trees to further enhance their darkness-slaying techniques. Those who pre-purchase the game now will be able to receive access to the closed beta.

Of course, an incentive for those who pre-purchased the game earlier, instant access to the closed beta will be provided ahead of the game’s release schedule. Check out the new pre-order trailer for more details.

Based on the famous novel by Bram Stoker and thankfully not the awful movie by Hollywood, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing has players taking on the role of Van Helsing in a younger avatar as he fights off various creatures of the night in this Gothic, steam-punk RPG.

The game sees Van Helsing traveling through Borgovia to battle a new evil overtaking the lands. We hope that Frankenstein and the Wolfman aren’t making cameos any time soon, but in case they are, called it.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is currently slated to release later this year for Xbox 360 and PC. And in case you’re wondering, yes, it’s based off the book of Dracula rather than the movie Van Helsing (thank the lord).