Combat is another aspect to have been hacked apart and reborn from the ground up. The fractured animation, shoddy collision detection and gravity-defying prancing of the original raised only eyebrows and titters; now we're promised frenetic hack-'n'-slash complemented by an sophisticated parrying system and some swish AI that memorises attack patterns and punishes predictable players. Balletic finishing moves and even shield attacks are also on the agenda; let's just hope the tepid wolf and boar encounters have been left on the bestiary drawing board.
