Amid all of the brilliant graphics of new games being shown during the Microsoft conference at E3, one game called Ashen slowed down the pace a bit with a moody, artistic trailer.
An RPG that very much brings to mind memories of the Dark Souls games, Ashen is an action game where players will take control of an adventurer in an attempt to find themselves a home. The basic premise of the game being made by Annapurna Interactive and Aurora44 may seem a bit generic to RPG fans, but the trailer that was shown in 4K quality shows a different type of game that adopts a much more simplistic style while keeping what appears to be the combat style that many love in the Dark Souls series.
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With all of the success that the series has had, people are undoubtedly tired of having their games compared to the Dark Souls games, but it’s hard not to draw such a comparison here. It opens into a dark setting where a small source of light is the only way to guide your path, and it continues to show similarly bleak settings such as caves overgrown with hanging plants and gnarled tree roots. Fighting around campfires, wielding a sword and shield combo with a shield that looks like it’s barely holding up, and taking on crawling and lanky enemies that eventually build up to a massive boss, it certainly bears a resemblance.
That’s not to say it doesn’t look good, though. The Souls formula clearly works, and Ashen looks to approach it with a new set of graphics. Polygons, spindly legs and arms, and faceless characters rule the landscape here, even when it comes to the players you control. It looks like there’s more than one character moving about in the trailer at the same time as well, so hopefully, there will be some sort of co-op system to allow players to take on the adventures together.
Ashen is currently listed to be released as an RPG that will be a console exclusive launch on the Xbox One, though there’s no word if it will remain exclusive after the launch.
