Atlas Fallen, Deck 13 Interactive’s upcoming action RPG, promises to drop players into a desolate, barren but beautiful world dominated by Sand Wraiths and in need of reclamation. With its May 16, 2023 release date rapidly approaching, the developers behind the title are revealing more and more details.
In a March 17 YouTube video, Deck 13 gave prospective players an idea of the incredible customization and individuality their design looks to encourage. Specifically, Creative Director Jan Klose explained how the entire movement system has been designed to encourage players to explore areas and complete quests.
“We have super cool agility in the game world,” he explained. “What do we do with it? We wanna use it not only for combat but also for exploration. So a lot of the game is about agile movement, verticality and exploration. We have a big big world where you can find different things everywhere and this is what we really wanna encourage the players [to do] – use all this agility, use all this movement to explore, to find cool stuff, to really enter a very very deep world. Play your way, play it in your pacing. Play it with the tools you like most.”
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It’s not only the movement that’s designed with player individuality in mind though. Discussing the combat, Klose explained that players can take on the game’s antagonists – known as Sand Wraiths – however they like.
“Players need to find out with every enemy what’s the best way to tackle that enemy,” he continued. “We have many many different ways how you can attack the enemy – different weapons, different skills that you can use… The bigger the enemies are the bigger the reward is. And that you can use for crafting and changing the way you tackle the next enemy.”
Finally, the game will have a “large variety” of Essence Stones, items that give players specific boosts depending on their choice. These are then taken into future fights and quests.
Klose finished: “[Players] can really tailor the playstyle to how you want to experience the game. We really like to have people create what they wanna play with and choose what they wanna choose… There’s a lot of player freedom in there and you can try and find your way of playing the game.”
In short, when Atlas Fallen drops on May 16, it sounds like no two-player experiences will be quite alike.