Hunted: The Demon’s Forge Previews

A bunch of sites swung by Bethesda’s booth for some hands-on time at InXile’s upcoming action-RPG, Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, playing as one of the two main characters through a short demo of the game. Gamer Limit.

The beauty of the design choices here are in the strengths and weaknesses of each character. The warrior will get picked apart by certain enemies that the archer can take down in safety from far away; likewise, enemies that the warrior can crush close up will make short work of the elf if they get close enough.

The Escapist.

Playing E’lara is all about ranged sniping. I could switch to sword and shield with the left bumper, but that wasn’t her focus. Aiming with the bow was a bit tough until Chukitus told me that I could zoom in by pressing down on the left stick. Early on in the game, my arrow attacks weren’t that powerful but if I injured a skeleton, I could tap B to perform an “execution.” I got to watch my arrow shot zoom into the skeleton’s neck, shattering it into dust. E’lara must collect arrows, as the game keeps track of ammo, but the plus side is that you have special attacks like ice arrows. These attacks use mana, which you can replenish by smashing blue flowers. I trust that these details are explained in the story but for now, it’s fun to shoot the environment and watch it blow up.

Filefront.

We made it to a character switching station, which will allow both players to swap characters if they choose. I swapped over to Caddoc and gave him a shot. Melee attacks are executed with the X and Y buttons. X is for weak combos, and Y if for strong combos. You can mash either one down to pretty good effect, or you can alternate them to string together more fluid motions. It was pretty intuitive and felt good to smash through skeletons this way.