I can think of little else cooler than flying above the streets of 17th Century Amsterdam, in the dead of night, on a broom stick, with a black cat. Looking down on the amber glow of the oil-lit streetlamps is my lasting positive memory of 1666: Amsterdam's preview, but I can't say I had the same fondness for it once I got up close and personal with what was on the ground.
1666: Amsterdam is over a decade old now, the brainchild of Patrice Désilets, director and creative lead of Assassin's Creed and co-founder of Panache. He had to fight for the game, suing his former employer Ubisoft for the rights to it. Now, he's working on it at Montreal indie-based studio Panache Digital Games.
"We do between 15 to 20 builds a day," Désilets explains. "So it always has to be playable, it's an iterative process at Panache. Progression is more important than perfection." A lot of progression has clearly been made in 1666: Amsterdam, what with its impressive map, interesting story, and smart exploration ideas. Even just during the preview its world felt impossibly big, but the real question is whether all these grand ideas will be polished enough for an early access release on August 25.
Witchful thinking
The preview picked up from where the demo left off with the protagonist Noa. I'd just picked my cat—who has the soul of a man named Aaron from the 1990s trapped inside it—and was promptly given the unenviable task of uncovering the demonic Originals and taking their unholy power back for my witchy self. But before I could even say goodbye to my fellow spellcasters before setting out on this journey, my coven was rudely interrupted by a group of witch hunters. From here on out there was a lot of running, fighting, and flying over the streets of Amsterdam to evade capture.
Noa was limited to dodging and brawling like a street sweeper.
I couldn't wait to get stuck into a fight, against mere humans no less, I could turn them into frogs, replace their skeletons with jello, anything felt possible. I decided to start out simple with a good old wack around the noggin with my broomstick, and then another hit, and another, and that's when I realised that Noa was limited to dodging and brawling like a street sweeper.
This was what the combat was like for the rest of the preview, although the dodging did get slightly harder as a new kind of enemy was introduced (a soldier with a pike) I didn't find any of it particularly challenging, which is not what I wanted, especially since 1666: Amsterdam has no different difficulty settings as of writing this although the team is apparently "thinking about it".
It also didn't help that my boss battle ended in disappointment as a tech mishap meant that the fight was bugged out for the entire session. After locating the Original alongside the seal they used to sign the contract which granted them great power, you force it to transform into its demonic self and fight it to the death. Unfortunately, the Original I encountered got half way through shifting and then got distracted by something and walked off. My experience of this seemed like the exception and not the rule, so while it shouldn't be held against 1666: Amsterdam, this was unfortunately my only firsthand experience of the boss fight.
Aside from getting stood up by a demon I did manage to see a bit more of what the combat has to offer later on in the game via a hands-off walkthough. One surprise was that 1666: Amsterdam will have roguelite features in that you'll come across chances to pick an ability out of three random ones after defeating Originals, or just by getting lucky when searching through houses. If you die then the abilities you gained during a section will reset and you'll have to pick new ones.
This is where I think the combat will really come into its own. With abilities that let you cast a shield of vines, attack with a swarm of crows, or just turn you into a beefy tank the combat will hopefully become more interesting as you grow Noa into the witch you want to fight with.
Abilities can also come in handy when it comes to traversing the town. Whether that be infiltrating houses or warping onto the roof tops so you can glide through the city without being interrupted by pesky humans.
Because the Originals are very private, you'll have to uncover their identities by snooping around, asking the right questions and getting into the right buildings. One fun way to get into a building or sneak into a meeting that would otherwise be a no-go is by using your cat to scare someone so badly you possess them. Once they're locked into a trance you can take them by the arm and lead them to wherever you want to go so they can let you in. You can also go the other way and use your cat as a distraction tactic for NPCs as the cat lures them from their guard post so you can sneak through undetected.
The exploration and infiltration is what I'm most excited to try out for myself. The level designers at Panache thought "of different ways to approach the puzzle" of getting into houses, which means there's no one answer to it. You can break into places with brute force, witchy powers, or just by being smart and sly. Désilets promises that you, the player, will get to "decide how you want to play it."
Spell it out
But even with all these promising features, after rewatching the capture and b-roll, thinking about my experience over and over while writing this preview I can't help but keep coming back to: "Progression is more important than perfection." In some ways it is, I've always valued experimentation over polish, I'd rather play something interesting than smooth, but I don't know if the same can be said for your average player who'll have to pay for the experience.
I would have wanted to see for myself how the roguelike elements felt and played out, because as is that first portion of fighting seems pretty stale. Then there's it's expansive world which seemed big but didn't quite feel full. I came away thinking that its real gems are hidden later on in the game, or perhaps better experience with a less bugs.
If 1666: Amsterdam can convince players that everything it has in the pipeline is worth the wait through early access and it gains some traction, then I think Panache could have something really great on its hands. I had an unfortunate playthrough—what with the boss bugging out and walking off before we could fight—but what I saw in that playthrough wasn't quite enough to convince me that this game is a dead cert. With early access release so close I have a bad feeling it may have a rocky start, but I'd be very happy to be proven wrong.
