Hellraid gameplay trailer shows off 20 minutes of monster mashing

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I will maintain until the day they pry the mouse from my cold, dead hand that Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is a criminally underrated game. So I was naturally intrigued by Hellraid , which by all appearances shares many similarities with Dark Messiah: Specifically, the bloody, fast-paced combat through expansive, RPG-style dungeons. But it's most definitely not, as this gameplay trailer makes clear, an RPG: Visual trappings notwithstanding, it's all about thefaux-medieval fantasy face-busting.

The "clobber, collect and continue" styling means Hellraid probably isn't going to be the deepest game ever, but the crumbling catacomb motif is awfully pretty, and while it's tough to effectively simulate melee combat in a first-person videogame, it looks reasonably varied and fluid. Will it be any good? The tactile nature of first-person sword-swinging makes it impossible to judge without actually playing, but I'm cautiously optimistic, especially since Techland appears to be putting real effort into it: The studio announced in April that Hellraid was being upgraded to the Chrome Engine 6 , which will enable physics-based lighting effects, better AI and a greater level of detail and complexity in the character models and animations.

Hellraid is slated to hit Steam: Early Access this fall, with the full release scheduled for 2015.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.