Silverfall Single-Player Hands-On - Quests, Skills, and Killing the Undead

It might seem like Silverfall is just another fantasy role-playing game, but it's actually an action RPG, similar to Diablo, that's set in an original fantasy universe. The game, which is being developed by French developer Monte Cristo, is due out next month, and we got our hands on a work-in-progress version recently.

Silverfall differs from last year's Titan Quest, the last major action role-playing game, in a couple of key ways. First, Titan Quest is an entirely linear game, in that you follow a predetermined and narrow path throughout the entire game and kill everything in your way. Silverfall features a much more open world that lets you wander around anywhere while still killing everything in your way. Secondly, while Titan Quest was set in the mythological past, Silverfall takes place in a fantasy realm full of familiar races, such as elves, trolls, and goblins. Indeed, it's an interesting place, because in addition to being able to create a human and elf character, you can play as a troll or a goblin. Apparently, the world of Silverfall is where a lot of the magical races have learned to get along with one another. It's just the pesky undead that are the problem. You'll also eventually be able to play a character that either specializes in sorcerous powers or in high technology, and you'll find different companions along the way that have cast their lots as magicians or technologists as well.

The game's name is taken from the opening city, which is destroyed after an undead army descends upon it. Your character is one of the refugees who flees the destruction, and thus the groundwork is laid for you to discover what evil force is behind the attack and earn some payback. Of course, to get that far you're going to have to take your low-level character and turn it into a force of destruction, and this process will involve killing many monsters, looting their bodies for weapons and items, and gaining experience levels to learn new fighting skills and abilities.

Your character can be chosen from one of the four aforementioned races, and you can select to play as a male or female and then customize your appearance, selecting from different faces, skin colors, and hair styles and colors. You don't have to worry about selecting a class, such as fighter or thief. Instead, throughout the game you'll be able to tailor your character's skills and abilities the way you want. The skill system is divided into three sections: combat, magic, and other. Each section is further divided into three subsections, so combat is divided into melee skills, shooting skills, and technique skills. And each subsection has various abilities that you can unlock when you level up in experience and spend skill points. For instance, the technique subsection has a way to boost your character's movement speed or to increase the odds of discovering a valuable item from a dead enemy. In addition to these skills, you can boost your regular physical attributes, such as strength, constitution, agility, and intelligence.

Since you start in a refugee camp, there's no shortage of quests that you can pursue. The resident healer needs some special tree bark for medicine to heal the wounded, a blacksmith wants you to recover a powerful artifact to make a weapon, and others need you to help fight off the zombies that have followed the survivors to the camp. The game's quest log thankfully divides up the quests into campaign (primary) and secondary categories to help sort out what's important and what's optional.

Being able to explore the world anywhere you want does introduce some navigation issues, especially since the third-person perspective view can rotate around your character. Thankfully, there are compass indicators in the minimap at the corner of the screen that let you know the direction you need to go to pursue a quest. The world of Silverfall is certainly a pretty place, full of majestic cities and a beautiful countryside, even if it is infested with zombies and ghouls. The enemies mainly exist for you to wander close to them, and then they'll attack. Judging by the densely packed hordes of opponents, there's going to be a lot of hacking and slashing in the game. While the environment has a normal 3D-rendered look to it, the characters have a highly stylized cel-shaded animation look, like they were taken out of a graphic novel or a television show. It's a nice touch that gives Silverfall a unique look for the genre.

The early part of the game is designed to ease you in, but we discovered it to be a bit tough. Namely, trying to battle giant ghouls as an early level character is brutal. Thankfully, there's very little penalty to dying at an early level. You simply restart back at camp, sans your weapons or equipment. You can recover your gear by going back to where you fell (a handy compass indicator points the direction to your tomb) and picking it up. Though, one of the problems with that is if whatever killed you is still standing over your tombstone, you're in trouble. A better solution is to find some traveling companions who can accompany you and provide some extra muscle for those bigger fights.

We didn't get a chance to check out the multiplayer component of the game. Still, the single-player campaign looks like it should offer plenty of fast-paced fantasy role-playing action, along with some excellent visuals. That's good news for fans of the genre, as well as those waiting for another Diablo. Silverfall will ship in March.