Underworld Ascendant - Reinventing the Genre

Underworld Ascendant opens with a problem: you must escape from a series of chambers armed with absolutely no weapons. This area is designed as an “un-training level,” with the intent of teaching you how important physical properties are.

“We found in testing that if you give people a sword early they want to solve everything with the sword,” Joe Fielder, game writer and director, says. Without a sword, you are forced to use your intellect, which is where Underworld Ascendant passes over the boundary between being an RPG and an immersive sim.



But, like with its swordless opening, Underworld Ascendant is doing immersive sims differently. The first return visit to the Stygian Abyss in over 25 years promises not only to remind us of how the Underworld games birthed this ambitious genre in the first place, but also demonstrate that you can do them without being hooked up to a publisher’s seemingly ceaseless cash flow.

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turian said:

the problem is that the sword is the only thing with that you can "interact" with npc characters in the most common rpgs.

so this game gives you a wand so you can burn stuff and a bow so you can shoot things that will fall on enemies…

sorry but i cant see any "reinvention" here.
mostly an small improvement.

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Silver said:

It would be cool if you could carry a hammer and some nails. Maybe even a ladder. That would open up alot of possibilities for play.

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mercy said:

Reinventing has nothing to do with Underworld Ascendant at all. Impotent & Desperate CopyCat Efforts rather.

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OSE_Sam said:

We agree about most players being accustomed to handling all matters with a sword. That being said, magic in UA is not combat-centric. Yes, there's a fire spell that CAN be used to hurl fireballs at people, but that's not it's primary intended use.

We've seen a lot of people use the environment to their advantage, which makes us happy. Players will stack crates to crawl into ceiling spaces, make boats out of levitating crates, and more. We hope that once you have an idea of all the tools you can use, players can have fun expressing themselves and completing the game however they'd like, instead of a set way.

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