After a length tour on the convention circuit, Capybara Games is finally in the home stretch of Below’s pre-launch promotional cycle. And our latest chance to play Below, on the show floor at PAX East 2016, has us convinced the studio's next game is going to be one of the top releases of the summer.
Below is an action-RPG, with a minimalist art style and presentation, that sends players down into the depths of a mysterious labyrinth. What we’re searching for inside the structure isn’t quite clear, or at least Capybara isn’t talking about it publicly yet, but the journey will be an arduous one. Players should expect to die frequently in Below, especially if they aren’t careful/observant, and those who aren’t careful with the lives of their heroes will find be spending as much time retrieving their belongings as they will exploring new chambers.
In the build being shown at PAX East, players have an opportunity to explore three floors of the enormous labyrinth. When the demo begins, players have access to a sword and shield, which can be used to attack/defend the various creatures roaming the first floor of the structure. It isn’t much but the sword and board are enough to keep the player safe from the various less-than-friendly creatures waiting in Below. Those tired of the parry-centric battles we’ve seen in recent action-RPGs will be pleased to know combat is pretty straightforward in Below. When your sword and shield are equipped, players can block most incoming attacks and dispatch enemies with a hit or two. Many will leave behind gems when they die which can be collected and used to refill your lantern, which will gradually run out of fuel anytime it’s being used.
As you wander deeper and deeper into the mysterious structure, players will continue to find all manner of loot: food, which can be consumed for health or cooked to increase its effectiveness, water, to quench the hero’s thirst or cook the aforementioned soups, crafting materials, which can be used to make torches, bandages and other supplies, and even secondary weapons like a spear or bow and arrow. These items can be carried on the player, at risk of dropping them on death, or stored in a variety of containers in a new safe zone being shown to the public for the first time at PAX East. That includes the lamp you’ll rely on to light your path, and expose hidden traps, along with whatever secondary weapon you happen to be carrying. You’ll even drop the glass bottles the player uses to collect water, which can be used brew soups that restore health and bestow other buffs. The system isn’t quite as brutal as, say, soul-retrieval in the Dark Souls franchise but its enough of a setback to make you approach each new room with some caution.
To make things even more challenging, each floor of the labyrinth is randomly generated before the player enters it and replaced with a new layout if/when the player dies. There’s also a bonfire system, used to access the safe zone and/or cook soup, which can also be used to quickly travel between previously explored floors. Items dropped by the player will be waiting in roughly the same place they were left behind and will remain there until the player successfully retrieves them. Interestingly, a new hero will be generated each time the player dies. Capybara says players will find an in-game explanation for the body-swapping, as they piece together the story behind Below, but the studio is keeping that secret to itself for now.
The game’s difficulty will undoubtedly draw comparisons to Dark Souls, the gold standard for games that make you want to smash your controller, but reducing the appeal of Below to its difficulty would overlook the many other systems Capybara Games has layered into the project since the last time we got to play Below. There’s a lot going on, only some of which is evident in demo builds, and the game’s mechanics haven’t even been the sole focus of the dev team. The latest build of Below looks noticeably better than its predecessors, which already looked great, thanks to a newly implemented foliage system that adds a bit of greenery to many of the rooms you’ll explore. The grass will occasionally rustle in the breeze and can be cut down with the player’s sword. You won’t find any rupees or bombs hidden in the tall grass but its the kind of small visual tweak that pays big dividends in crowded fights.
Truth be told, we don’t have a single complaint to lodge against Below in its current state. If anything, we were bummed out when our media appointment came to a close and we had to leave the Capybara Games booth without answers to so many of our questions about the game and the world its set in. What’s most impressive is the game’s world-generation systems, which create environments so beautiful (and fun to explore) that we wouldn’t have known the content was randomly-generated unless a member of the Below team told us during the demo.
If you consider yourself a fan of action-RPGs, particularly those that emphasize exploration and trial and error gameplay, Below is game we’d absolutely recommend keeping on your radar for the next few months. After multiple chances to play Below, including an hour of hands-on time at PAX East 2016, everything we’ve seen suggests Capybara is putting together a game that we’ll be able to enjoy for many years.
Below is in development for PC and Xbox One. The game is expected to debut this summer.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Below news throughout 2016 and for as long as Capybara supports Below in the months following launch.
