Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption is a new game from Hong Kong-based studio Dark Star, taking inspiration from from Dark Souls, and Shadow of the Colossus.
The game was officially revealed this week by publisher Another Indie Studio. The team behind it, Dark Star, is made up of ex-Ubisoft, Konami, and Blizzard developers.
Sinner’s setup is very interesting (via PCGamer). It looks like a boss rush game with Dark Souls-style baddies, though some resemble Shadow of the Colossus more than Dark Souls. Each boss represents one of the seven deadly sins, and defeating them is the only way for redemption.
That’s not all, though, as the hero must pick an attribute to level down before each fight, making him weaker. This is part of the game’s sacrifice mechanic.
“The action is framed by a desolate afterlife in which Adam seeks to restore his memories and atone for his sins. How he interacts with each boss will ultimately decide his fate in one of multiple endings,” the game’s pitch reads.
Apart from the announcement trailer above, off-screen footage of the game made its way online recently. It definitely does look a lot like Souls here, even down to the lock on icon.
Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption is out in Q1 2018 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. It’ll be playable at Gamescom next month, and PAX West in September.
VR is a fun gimmick, but it’s incredibly difficult to make it feel like more than that.
I love breaking out a VR headset when friends are over. It’s a laugh to throw them into Resident Evil 7’s Kitchen or let them bask in the absurdity of Job Simulator or I Expect You to Die. These are all great games, but they’re mostly made great by the sight of others experiencing them. For the first time, however, I’ve found a VR game I want to play alone – and that feels like a major step for the medium.
That game is Lone Echo, the latest release from Oculus Studios developed by Ready at Dawn, the developer best-known for the PSP God of War spin-offs and The Order: 1886. It’s one of the first VR experiences I’ve played that feels like a truly, fully fleshed out triple-A experience that isn’t focused on multiplayer or other sandbox, make-your-own fun experiences. This is a full-on story-driven adventure – and it’s one that feels perfectly suited to VR.
“I’m still something of a VR skeptic, but Lone Echo is the type of game that we need to keep seeing to prove this medium’s true potential.”
Lone Echo casts you as Jack, an AI robot chap that’s aboard a space station with a bunch of other robots less intelligent than you and Olivia, the human captain. The opening hour or so of the game is a gentle, slow burn that teaches you how to move in the environment and introduces you to the cast, of which the station itself is a major member.
Movement is the first place where Lone Echo seems like it’s truly approached VR from the bottom up, the end result a hugely satisfying and comfortable way to move around. With the Oculus Touch controllers and some decent room space you can move around 360 degrees simply by twisting yourself this way and that, but deeper movement takes advantage of the fact Lone Echo is set in space brilliantly. Firstly, you have access to basic jets at your wrists that can be activated with a press of a button on the Touch controllers. You can angle your hands in a direction and boost yourself slowly in that direction via that. Simple.
The jets are slow however, and the real way to get around is presumably not that dissimilar to how it really works in space – by grabbing hold of walls, tables and other surfaces and pulling yourself along, using momentum to propel yourself across a room in the direction you desire. The simple, intuitive design of the Oculus Touch controllers means this all feels very natural, and in no time at all you’ll be comfortably grabbing onto surfaces to clamber and sling your way around the station while using the jets to make fine adjustments.
Resident Evil 7 in PlayStation VR has been my favourite story-based, in-depth VR experience so far, but even that suffered from movement problems. Moving about using control sticks in VR is a recipe for disorientation, and that’s the most surprising thing about Lone Echo’s deft solution to the problem – it feels entirely natural, and at no point did it give me motion sickness.
It’s also by far and away the VR character movement solution that has been the least illusion-shattering to my brain, with the suspension of disbelief coming easily. The movement is hard to completely articulate, but watching a video of the game will make how it works very clear.
Much else about the controls is similarly intuitive and tactile-feeling. To activate a scanner or other such tools you’ll have to use one hand to prod at buttons on the other wrist – and it feels natural. There’s something deeply satisfying and tactile about how Lone Echo’s control systems interact. Crucially, it all feels natural.
You might have an item in hand and need to scan it; you’ll thus release it to weightlessness in order to activate your scanner with two hands, then grab the item again and scan it. You might need to cut something with a laser with one hand while steadying yourself to hold steady in place with the other hand. It becomes a cool little test of speed and dexterity, and there’s not much to say other than it simply works. In VR, which has had very mixed fortunes, feeling so natural and right is actually a bit of a revelation.
“There’s something deeply satisfying and tactile about how Lone Echo’s control systems interact. Crucially, it all feels natural.”
Lone Echo wraps all this up in a satisfying package that manages to pull off a compelling little story that you’ll want to see through. The fact that the game doesn’t seem to snag itself on the most basic of concepts such as character movement seems to really free it up to run with an interesting story that’s full of spectacle and fairly reminiscent of the movie Gravity – and that is said as a strong compliment.
Lone Echo also ships with Echo Arena as part of its package. Echo Arena is currently free stand-alone for three months, but Lone Echo owners get it permanently as part of the package. It uses the same basic movement design from the single-player campaign but in a Tron-like setting which is part Frisbee, part Rugby, and really surprisingly exhilarating.
Tossing a disc between players in daring passes while others try to intercept and block really lends itself well to the momentum-driven movement, as launching yourself too early or too late could prove a costly mistake indeed. The multiplayer is great fun and is arguably even more special than the single-player content – but I was drawn to Lone Echo by that narrative, a narrative that for once in VR feels supported rather than hindered by the unique control and presentation methods available in VR.
Lone Echo is ultimately a costly game – it’s a reasonable $39.99 / £29.99, but it will require the Oculus Touch controllers, the Rift itself, a powerful PC and ideally a third Oculus sensor to make the most of the tracking. If you have all of this already, however, Lone Echo could well be the single-player killer app VR has been waiting for. I’m still something of a VR skeptic, but Lone Echo is the type of game that we need to keep seeing to prove this medium’s true potential.
You may not be able to play Bloodborne on PC, but you sure can pretend with this Dark Souls mod.
Aptly named BloodSouls, the mod adds the Hunter character model along with the Saw Cleaver and Blunderbuss, two of the most recognisable weapons in Bloodborne.
It also changes up the HUD icons and the rest of the game sounds to resemble those of Bloodborne’s. If you’re curious, the Saw Cleaver is a replacement for the Dark Sword, and the Blunderbuss takes the Light Crossbow’s place.
It’s not ideal, but it’s the best we could have given Dark Souls’ limitations. You also can’t side-step, so you’ll continue to employ rolling to avoid hits.
The mod relies on DSFix (which you should be using anyway), and DSMODT to load in new textures. You can download it yourself and read the install instructions through here.
Any TouchArcade readers who have been following the website since 2013 will not only be awesome people, but will also likely remember an incredibly, err, eccentric game by the name of Alpaca Evolution [Free] from Japanese developer COCOSOLA. Even with some of the bizarre experiments released on a weekly basis on the App Store, the cannibalism/mutation simulator of Alpaca Evolution really stood out at the time for its inexplicable premise, and was well received in our TA Plays feature around its launch. While we have heard little from the developer since its breakout release, their latest title dropped onto the App Store out of nowhere this weekend, and it's certainly a major shift in direction from COCOSOLA's previous releases. The Witch's Isle [Free] is an incredibly intriguing point-and-click adventure game with some beautiful pixel art, and the Sword and Sworcery [$3.99] vibes I get from the screenshots can only be a good thing.
Considering their last major release featured cartoon graphics and alpaca cannibalism, The Witch's Isle is a significant step up in scope, scale and complexity. An ordinary villager in a town is visited by a witch, who condemns them to death unless they can find the witch's stolen url by 4am. In an attempt to escape this curse, you must explore an island and learn about its inhabitants while a timer in the top-left corner ticks away ever closer to your 4am deadline. The premise of The Witch's Isle, combined with the ominously bleak yet stunningly intricate pixel art, emphasise the lurking presence of death in the game, and the aforementioned Sword and Sworcery influences are perfectly complimented with Ghost Trick or The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask elements. The ability to make the camera follow other islanders is a particularly neat one, and means this point-and-click game isn't solely limited to interaction with a static environment, but also requires observation and patience amidst a ticking time-bomb of the curse.
The Witch's Isle, as far as I am aware, came out of nowhere to launch on the App Store this weekend, and it's hard not to be a little sceptical whether the developer can make such a major step up into the point-and-click genre, with all its meticulous and complex storytelling. However, early signs are promising, and the prospect of seven different endings suggests it may have the longevity that many similar games lack. As a free-to-download game with an option to donate a certain amount to the developer, The Witch's Isle is definitely worth a try, at the very least. If you decide to give the game a download, or want to know more about what to expect in The Witch's Isle, take a look at our forum thread for more information on this haunting adventure title.
Dota 2 has received a new update designed to make the game more inviting for new players.
The patch brought two features that Valve says will help remove “unnecessary challenges” that faced newcomers in the past.
First, the game’s hero selection screen has been changed to only show 20 heroes to new players. This list is curated by Valve, and will showcase heroes the developer feels new players should start with.
New players will continue to see the same group of heroes until they’ve played 25 games. The entire roster will then be unlocked.
The other big addition builds upon the first by matching new players only against those with “consistently high behaviour scores”. Meaning, you’ll only play with and against non-assholes.
This also takes player skill into consideration, but it’s the social experience that’s the focus. MOBAs are incredibly challenging games that demand a lot from players, so it’s easy to see how they could have a toxicity problem.
This comes after Valve recently introduced a story-driven, co-op mode to the game. It’s available only to Battle Pass holders, but it’s easy to see why it was included.
This update is now available, but the changes likely won’t impact those who already play the game.
It didn’t take long for it to attract 481,291 concurrent players. Impressively, Fallout 4 achieved its is 471,955 record at launch, and the numbers wen’t downhill from there, as they tend to do. This is the opposite of what PUBG did as it continued to grow.
The game has fair bit to go if it is to beat Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s 850,485 record. Though this may seem impossible now, consider how quickly it gained momentum, and how far it’s gone in a few short months.
This explosive growth comes days after the game surpassed six million copies sold, according to Steam Spy.
The next patch for PUBG launches this week, and it’s going to be a big one. New features include an FOV slider, first-person servers, a new weapon, and more.
