Shadwen is the brand new and ambitious project by Frozenbyte, the Finnish developer behind the Trine series. CEO Lauri Hyvärinen isn't afraid to speak his mind about the sad state of the stealth genre, something which will be addressed with Shadwen.
The stealth genre has been in a slump for years. Guns blazing and invincible heroes is not stealth. Yearly revisions like sports roster updates is a crap way of doing games. Shadwen will bring the genre back to its roots, with sneaking and hiding the main course of action. We will also explore the moral consequences of killing through our characters.
What that means is that you'll have to stay hidden for the entire course of Shadwen, because once spotted the guards will kill you on sight. Here's an excerpt about the story:
Shadwen, an assassin on a quest to kill the king, has a chance encounter with a little orphaned girl, Lily. She follows Shadwen on her dangerous journey, but when the ruthless guards get too close, Shadwen must take action right in front of Lily's eyes. Will she resort to violence and let Lily witness her crimes, or can she find another way and protect the child's innocence?
To kill or not to kill - that is the question.
There's more, though. Time only passes when moving, and you'll be able to rewind it too according to the features list below.
- Stay hidden - avoid detection and guards, who will ruthlessly kill you upon capture.
- Time is an accomplice - time stands still when you are not controlling Shadwen, allowing you to stop at any point: mid-motion, during jumps, right before a guard sees you.
- Carefully rewind time to manipulate your past and present actions to gain an upper hand on the guards. Make precision movements to nail each move and try different strategies for the ultimate solution.
- Pick your assassinations carefully. Avoid being seen, heard or getting caught indirectly. Suspicious sights and noises will alert the guards - use it to your benefit.
- Sneak and explore around the dark and gritty medieval province and use the environment to your advantage - use your rope to grapple onto rooftops, silently drop from ceilings, or veil yourself in the shadows.
- Use physics and a freely attachable rope to drag and topple objects. Make deaths look accidental; let gravity do the grave work.
- Set up traps and hazards to lure guards towards their untimely demise; discover new ways to eliminate or distract your foes by crafting items into deadly surprises, including poison traps, spike devices, smoke bombs and more.
- Lethal and non-lethal solutions - choose your play style but remember: actions have consequences.
- Become a true god of stealth and protect Lily's innocence - complete the game with no bodies left behind.
Take a look at the announcement trailer below. Shadwen will be available in 2016; platforms haven't been announced yet, but it's safe to guess PC and PlayStation 4 at least (Trine 3 is available on both).
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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