Previews// Hunted: The Demon's Forge

Although E’lara and Caddoc are largely proficient in their respective long-distance and close-distance attacks, you can change from a bow to a sword in a pinch to change your strategy a little bit. E’lara can use a short sword for example, which won’t necessarily be her greatest weapon but can get her out of a pickle if a skeleton gets close enough to attempt a bit of romance.

Once the area is cleared, the king - complete with a nice Bob Hoskins impression - explains that the enemies were just fought were his own people, intoxicated by a strange silver potion that gives them super stronger but also knackers their minds a little bit. The remaining citizens were taken away and held captive in the castle’s labyrinthine dungeons, and after a little bartering - Hoskins had sensibly holed himself up in a room full of gold - we were on our way underground.

While the prologue chapter was pretty straightforward, this castle dungeon felt more like the kind of multiple-route maze that you would expect from a game of this design. Huge stone heads speak of riddles that allow you to access an optional passageway, in much the same way that Knightmare did to bucket-wearing children in the 1980s. Runes are etched onto the dark, dank corridors that, when enough are discovered, lead to bonuses and unlock treasure chests. And while E’lara can light torches with fire arrows, Caddoc can use his muscle to push heavy objects out of the way.

Playing co-op was a lot of fun initially, but navigation problems soon became apparent when my partner and I had become separated. If you press an action button on something that your other half can do with their unique abilities, your character will automatically yell ‘Hey, over here’ or other such dialogue to draw your friend’s attention. Unfortunately, as there was no map and no obvious way of easily leading me to my partner, I ended up having to run around several narrow corridors whilst listening my incredibly bored teammate yell at me from all kinds of different directions (bouncing echoes doesn’t do a lot for your sourcing techniques).

Flashbacks to bizarre nightmares aside, the graphics are pretty impressive and the stony labyrinth I explored maintained a retro Dungeons and Dragons style atmosphere. There’s a lot of scope for levelling up your abilities, as you get to spend collected crystals on various kinds of spells - there’s a category for weapon-specific enhancements and a section for general battle magic, and each spell has a selection of perks that you can attach to them (such as improved damage, radius and varying effects).

Bethesda tells me it will take a “competent gamer” about 20 hours to finish the campaign, but I hope as we near the 3rd June release date we will get to see some differing environments inspired by the fantasy setting. So far we’ve seen mountainside greenery and wet, smelly, stony dungeons. It will be good to see other areas, and this may be where user-generated content comes into play too.

I was told of a new map generator mode in Hunted: The Demon’s Forge called Crucible, but no details were shared other than the fact that it exists, and that you can spend your hard-earned gold on its various elements. If nothing else, it will extend the life of the campaign by a large margin, assuming it’s simple to use and results in some interesting possibilities. No doubt we’ll know more about that as the game nears its store shelf destiny.