Godfall

Godfall was announced at the Game Awards 2019 as a launch title for PS5 and since then the hype has been building for this game. It’s been described as a looter-slasher, similar to live service games like Destiny and The Division with one key difference… instead of shooting guns we’re going to be battling with and chasing swords.

The original reveal trailer came out at the Game Awards 2019 and showed a character in elaborate armour running through a temple of some kind while it was crumbling around him. Knocked back by an explosion and onto the ground, they are followed by two more characters holding big and elaborate swords. All characters are covered in very cool looking armour, some with flames burning from the headgear. The camera pans back to reveal another character wielding a heavy sword inscribed with symbols. The three characters than stand together and walk outside ” one character exclaims while the other says “No storm can stop us” and it’s revealed a huge three-headed dragon swirling at the top of the storm.

There are a few things going on here. We have a party of 3 characters, which could indicate 3 player co-op and elaborate armour and weapons. One character was holding a huge flaming sword, and you could imagine chasing the awesome looking armour each character was covered in. The headgear and shoulder pieces look like the heads of huge cats – perhaps lions, tigers or panthers. Each of the three characters has different styles covered in head to toe metal armour. No actual gameplay was shown in the initial reveal trailer, although a GIF of gameplay was shown on the Godfall Twitter account.

At the start of January, there was a leaked trailer which showed much more in-depth gameplay. It opens showing a single character looking over a snowy vista, cutting to another looking up at what looks to be a castle. Then we get the gameplay we’ve been waiting for with a character thrusting a huge sword into a bunch of enemies, battling enemies with what looked to be a staff weapon of some kind, fighting against a huge beats that’s tied up to a wall, with other enemies swirling and swinging their swords in what looks to be intense melee combat.

Enemies appear to have a variety of weapons like axes, staffs, light swords and heavy swords. There seems to be a range of enemies here too from trash mobs to mini-bosses. We also get a glimpse of what looks to be co-op play with two characters taking on a huge knight in heavy armour and covered in flames as they drop to one knee after being attacked.

The devs did come out and say that this footage was a year old, so you can imagine the development since then. Perhaps we’re gearing up towards a reveal soon, as there’s a rumoured February 2020 event to showcase PlayStation 5 and Sony are going to want some of their launch titles to be shown in a little more detail.

From what we have seen so far I’m excited for this one. Over the past few years, we’ve had Sekiro and then elements of FromSoft’s games combat systems appear in other games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Combing the combat systems from something like Sekiro into a looter-slasher genre sounds very exciting indeed.

We don’t know anything yet about the weapon, armour, classes or combat so it’s a lot of guesswork for now. We all know how hard it is to build, launch and then develop a live-service game.

Sony did release details on its website, which reads as follows.

“Godfall is a brand-new, next-gen looter-slasher, set in a bright fantasy universe filled with heroic knights and arcane magic.”

You can see the fantasy elements coming through in the armour and weapons. Magic is mentioned here, so perhaps magic will be weaved into our armour or weapons, or we’ll have a specific subclass focused on magic.

“Embark on an adventure in a fantasy action RPG that utilizes high-impact third-person melee combat to engage players as they hunt for loot, don legendary armour sets and defeat vicious enemies. Face challenging missions that reward you with head-turning loot as you vanquish the armies that stand against you.”

This paragraph is all kinds of exciting. Action-adventure RPGs are definitely my jam with The Legend of Zelda being up there as one of my favourite franchises of all time. Combine that action-adventure RPG style with the loot-gathering of games like Destiny, this one has all the ingredients to be a fantastic game.

“Counterplay Games is innovating with Godfall to provide a fresh take on third-person action combat, rewarding skill-based offensive gameplay and making every hit matter.”

Here it sounds like they will be leaning into the more challenging aspect of melee combat. From the clips we’ve seen so far, you can see slashing, parrying, rolling – all very Souls-like. In a game like Destiny and The Divison you have a range of enemies from smaller, weaker ones that you can dispose of fairly easy to strike bosses that take a fair amount of time to take out. Combing the mastery of something like Sekiro with the loot-rewards of something like Destiny could be a winner.

“Face challenging missions that feed your yearning for the next best piece in your character build and amass loot that has a meaningful impact on gameplay.”

This sounds like fairly standard live-service looter talk and is a system we’ve become used to over the last few years.

“Go it alone, or play with anyone at any time. Bosses and enemies have been designed with co-op in mind, boasting special abilities that counter multiple combatants attacking from different angles.”

Bosses and enemies are going to scale up the bigger your party is. It sounds like you can play solo or up to three players. There’s no mention of something like raids at the moment, but first, we should see how three-player melee fights pan out before asking for more.

This is being made by Counterplay Games based in California and they say on their website “We’re a tight-knit 75 person team with the vision to craft games focused on high levels of personal mastery, drawing from our past experiences working on the Ratchet & Clank series, God of War, Destiny 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Diablo III, Gears 5, Star Wars Battlefront, Titanfall 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Evolve, Halo 5, Battlefield 3, Bioshock Infinite, Call of Duty, Injustice 2 and Overwatch.” So there’s some great experience in there from looter-shooters as well as online multiplayer games.

We’ve only had a brief glimpse of this so far and we’re yet to get the official gameplay reveal. This one certainly has grabbed my attention and what we have seen so far looks very good. We’re more than likely to get more details really soon as the PS5 hype machine is about to get turned on.

What do you want to see from Godfall? What classes and weapons would you like? What other features from existing looter-shooter games do you want in Godfall, for example, raids. Let me know if you’re looking forward to Godfall and what you’d like to see down in the comments.