Fatekeeper is an upcoming first-person RPG with heavy Dark Messiah vibes

Fatekeeper | Announcement Trailer - YouTube

I replayed the opening levels of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic back in March and it still stands up (and then kicks an orc off a wall). That school of first-person physics fantasy is a much-missed flavor of RPG, which is why it's such a treat to sit down for the trailer of Fatekeeper and realize, after the first tedious minute of exposition is out of the way, that this is a game all about shoving orcalikes off walls.

While it doesn't appear to have a kick move, our hero—apparently a druid, which here means someone who uses magic but also will cut you—can shove, cast a gust of wind, and throw barrels to knock enemies down. It's also got slow-motion decapitation and limb targeting and baddies who ragdoll like a motherfucker, which my lizard brain loves to see.

Here's another selling point: it's not open world. Though you can go at least a little bit off-book. "While Fatekeeper follows a focused narrative path," the Steam page's description says, "the world invites exploration." Sounds ideal.

As you'd expect for an RPG it looks like there's a whole bunch of progression, letting you "lean into raw strength, nimble precision, or devastating sorcery," meaning that I will absolutely hoard points until I get to a difficult bit and then throw them into whatever build seems like the easiest way to get past it.

While Fatekeeper's worldbuilding made an audible whoosh as it went right past me, the enemies look like an interesting bunch to batter around. As well as the orcalikes there are big lizards, gross centipedes, and an armored minotaur who seems like a boss I'll enjoy carving into steaks.

Fatekeeper is the work of Paraglacial, a studio founded by ex-members of Grimlore Games—the studio currently working on Titan Quest 2, but back in the day known for the RPG/RTS combo Spellforce 3. Fatekeeper is coming to early access on Steam "this winter".

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Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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