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“From there we try to find references for some kind of look that we are after. Usually, we want to make sure that there is some kind of “creepy” element to the area to evoke. Even something as simple as a style of rock can produce uneasy feelings in players, but there are a lot of other details to achieving this. A great example is lighting. We try to light the game like a horror movie. That means having high contrast shadows, and not using too much ambient lighting. Even a bright area like a Jungle in daytime can appear ‘dark’ in tone if you give it a good amount of contrast.”
When I jumped in and started playing within this creepy hellscape during my hands-on session, I picked the Witch, whose skills like summoning minions and casting spells track to how I like to play most action-RPGs. What struck me immediately was how pleasingly fluid my character felt moving through the world, not to mention how well it mapped to the Xbox controller, especially with the analog sticks. It was like playing a twin-stick shooter, with the left analog stick controlling the witch, while right analog stick would attack in the direction I focused my spells. I also liked the level of control I had over my skeleton minions and how I could invest in having a variety of roles for them, like two warriors and two snipers, for example.
“The biggest improvement in my opinion is the combat feel,” says Rogers. “There are a large number of little details that go into improving combat, but it’s things like being able to move while using many abilities, special animations for getting into range, dodge rolling, and the ability to retarget during an attack that all come together to make combat feel much better.”