We got a look at Focus Entertainment's upcoming Atlas Fallen during Gamescom Opening Night Live, in the form of about two and a half minutes of CG trailer and 10 seconds of gameplay. It looks a lot like a Monster Hunter game if the Monster Hunter games were more about hunting down and killing God instead of cooking fun meals with your cat pals.
There's not a lot to be gleaned from the trailer, but what we can tell is that the game revolves around a conflict between the inhabitants of a ruined-looking fantasy world and the pantheon of corrupted gods that rule over it, represented by stained glass windows and Church Latin. It feels like a strange aesthetic choice for a distant and desolate fantasy world to me, but I suppose that's why I haven't earned my own place on a pantheon of vain deities.
The announcement promises a campaign that can be played fully cooperatively or solo, and promises to let you "gather the essence of your enemies to shape your own custom playstyle". I'm going to take a stab at interpreting that statement and say you're going to gather experience from defeated monsters that will let you spec your character into specific builds.
Focus is promising a "semi-open world" filled with all manner of goodies and secrets to stumble across, and the brief looks we get at the combat make it look very splashy and colourful. I can't emphasise enough how very Monster Hunter it all looks: the trailer shows the main character moving from settlements out into combat areas, fighting oversized monsters with enormous hammers, and also literally says you'll spend your time hunting "legendary monsters" in the description. How this factors into your overarching plan to assassinate the demiurge is unclear at this point.
It looks alarmingly pretty, and in fairness there's quite a bit in there that you won't find in Capcom's latest monster wrangler. Traversal looks like it consists of Tribes-style skiing across the sandy environs of whatever this setting is called, and it sounds like the developers are emphasising an almost archaeological component of the gameplay loop: poring over the mysteries and relics you encounter out in the wastes in between hitting monsters with hammers.
There's no solid release date yet, just a vague goal of 2023, but the game already has a shiny new Steam page set up. You can check it now if your interest is piqued by the Monster Hunter part, the warring with gods part, or the part where there's finally another game with Tribes-style skiing.
Catch up with our full list of Gamescom announcements from Opening Night Live and check our Gamescom schedule to find out when to watch everything else.
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