Bound By Flame Preview Round-Up

In the wake of E3, we’ve seen a bevy of new articles covering Bound by Flame, an upcoming action-RPG by Spiders, makers of Of Orcs and men and the recent Mars: War Logs.

SideQuesting provides a straightforward preview:

Where it does do some interesting things is in the morality side. The main character, which can be created based on our gender and appearance whims, has been possessed by a fire demon. As the game progresses and choices are made to gain power, take the hard way, do good or bad, our hero can become more possessed by the entity, slowly turning into one along the way. The change is both physical and plot-based, too. In our presentation the character grew horns, became scaly, more muscular and threatening, and the appearance will be different based on how we’ve designed our characters. The game’s different factions and allegiances will change, since some groups are considered pure and others are nearly cult-like towards the demon.

It’s a little like the team took the idea of Mass Effect 2’˜s Shepard physical changes and expounded upon them to the nth degree.

It’s an intriguing idea that may inspire a few playthroughs, as players take different paths and make different choices along the way. It seems like it has the ability to make everyone’s experience with it unique. It’s still early in development, and has been pushed out of 2013 into the beginning of 2014. Though it’s being developed for XBLA , PSN, and PC right now, the team hasn’t made any choices yet for next gen consoles as of yet.

RPGFan has its own coverage:

Your warrior is, as best we can tell, without a set name, and you can fully customize their build at the outset, including choosing between a male or female avatar. Your character can grow in a number of ways, such as from the game’s three skill trees, which breaks up abilities and upgrades into three paths: Combat, Pyromancy, and Shadowmancy. You can focus on a certain path or dabble in each. Your weapons can be upgraded with a crafting system similar to Mars War Logs, in which you can upgrade or alter nearly every piece of equipment on your body. Bound by Flame is not designed as a full open world, but instead is divided into chapters, with each chapter having its own quest hub and areas to explore. Because of this design, we were told that the game will be “semi-linear,” but with a heavy focus on story. Combat appears to fairly standard action RPG fare, though we were impressed by the creative monster designs and the detailed environments in which you’ll fight. Over the course of the game, you’ll meet up to five potential companions, of which two at a time can join you in battle. While you only directly control your own character, you can issue commands and assign set behaviors to your AI-controlled companions.

For the more worldly of our readers, Gamekult and Xboxygen have both provided French language previews of the game.

Last, Elder Geek also provides us with a video interview featuring Jehanne Roussea, CEO of Spiders. You can take a look at it right here.