We recently got the opportunity to play Tides of Annihilation at an exclusive media event. Read the new details we learn about its gameplay, combat and story and whether this upcoming character action adventure game is shaping up to be the next genre standout.
Tides of Annihilation Hands-On | New Gameplay, Combat, Story Details, and More
Fans have been buzzing since the initial reveal of Tides of Annihilation at Sony's 2025 State of Play. Starting off strong with a straight-up gameplay reveal, it promised a high-octane, narrative-driven experience set in a shattered version of modern London plagued by mystical, otherworldly forces.
We were invited to go hands-on with the game at a media event hosted by Eclipse Glow Games. Going into the event, I was curious to see if the game could live up to the spectacle of its trailers, and I finally got to see how this ambitious project plays.
At the event, we were allowed to play the demo for 90 minutes, followed by another 30 minutes to record our gameplay, for a total of two hours with the game. During those two hours, I spent some time in the menus, some time looking through the tidbits and lore, and some time dying to the enemies (on purpose, of course, ahem).
After all of that, I finally went about actually defeating the bosses. At the end of it, I had a clearer picture of what the studio is building, and while I was able to find the answer to some of my burning questions, I certainly didn't leave with all of them resolved.
What We Knew Before
Let's go over some of the basics for those who aren't familiar with the game.
Tides of Annihilation casts you as Gwendolyn, the lone survivor in a world where London and the mythical realm of Avalon have collided. Gwen, as she's often referred to, is on a mission to find shards of the Holy Grail to rescue her sister, restore London, and save the fabric of reality itself. Traveling alongside her is a mysterious young red-haired girl named Niniane, seemingly based on the Lady of the Lake in Arthurian legends.
Despite what people may claim, Tides of Annihilation is not a soulslike. It's a character action RPG adventure game, more akin to Devil May Cry. The game primarily utilizes their "Dual Frontline Battle System" mechanic, which lets the player fight with four spectral knight companions that can be summoned at any time to assist in combat with the press of a button. These unique knights are capable of performing powerful moves like air combos, time-stopping, spear attacks, scythe slashes, and more.
On top of fast, flashy combat, there are mountain-sized "colossal knights" that promise Shadow of the Colossus-style boss fights, where you'll climb around their bodies and fight them as they move.
That's the main gist of it. There were a few more details given here and there, but it wasn't until this demo that we were able to truly learn about the game.
What Was In the Demo?
5 Slices of the Gameplay
The demo itself had five sections.
The first was the tutorial where we were taught the basic attacks, different charge attacks, and how to use the knights under the instruction of Gwen's master Guan Yu, a Chinese figure known as the Marshal Saint.
The second was a slice into the more standard gameplay experience, where we were able to move around and learn how exploration would work. Set in "the Russell Museum," which in real life is known as the British Museum located on Great Russell Street, it gave us a sense of what the gameplay tempo will be like and the general flow of how a player goes from one boss to the next, or from one area to the next. At the end of this section was a boss fight with Anubis.
After that, there were three boss battles: one being an updated battle with Mordred and two optional bosses named Geraint, who shows up as a sub-quest boss in the main campaign, and Redrend.
Close to Final Build?
The demo itself seemed fairly polished. It looked like all of the UI, the in-game animations, the start menu, and the items are more or less at a very usable point. There were no strange English translations, and there were animations of Gwendolyn transitioning and moving as equipment and outfits were changed out.
A lot of the basic items and item descriptions were already there, with no placeholder texts. Whether this is limited to just the demo remains to be seen, but as for what was shown, it seems like it would be fine to release. We were able to see different item types: weapons, skills, armor, outfits. There are "Badges" and "Fog Runes" that are equippable, and we saw what consumables are available. We saw how to swap knights in and out; we saw maps, quests, how the inventory looks, any sort of collectibles, surrounding lore, tutorials, tutorial explanations, and settings.
There were some areas that were explicitly not available in the build. This was specifically in the Chinese section of the museum; there seemed to be extended areas that we should be able to move to, but they were blocked for the demo.
The devs have mentioned that while it's not an open-world game, they're hoping to maintain the stance of, "If you can see it, you can go there."
How Was the Demo?
A Very Controlled Experience, But a Great One Nonetheless
Right off the bat, we saw that the game is very easy to pick up. Even if you are only slightly familiar with action games, it is very easy to get right into it and start pulling off crazy, flashy combos.
Gwendolyn herself only has four basic attacks; whether or not this will change remains to be seen. But it is really when you start bringing in the other knights that you can see how the flashiness occurs and where the different kinds of combos will mostly arise.
At its core, the philosophy behind the combat and controls feels like a modern blend of influences. It’s fundamentally a "DMC-style" action game at heart (the loop is all about chaining stylish combos) but you see the DNA of other titles in the mix. The Knight system carries clear hints of Astral Chain, while the way enemies are sectioned off brings God of War to mind. Playing through the demo on Standard difficulty, I didn't find the game overly punishing, but it’s definitely the kind of experience that rewards practice.
The real hurdle is the sheer volume of options: you’re juggling two distinct sets of Knights, each packed with their own skills and unique cross-Knight combos. Mastering that depth takes time. However, the game keeps the difficulty manageable because Gwendolyn’s personal kit of basic attacks, finishers, and counters is straightforward enough that you don't feel overwhelmed, leaving you plenty of mental bandwidth to manage the Knight system on the fly.
It’s also surprisingly forgiving. The penalty for taking a hit is relatively light; the protagonist recovers quickly from knockdowns, and your HP bar doesn't evaporate the second you take a bad hit. Bosses even drop health items if you're struggling to stay in the fight. On top of that, there are growth systems and specific gear (like one-time revives or HP-leeching weapons) that allow you to fine-tune the experience to your comfort level.
Action veterans coming from DMC or Nier will likely adapt the fastest, but because the parry windows and iframes are so generous, even players unused to the stricter timing of Soulslikes will find the game accessible. Even genre beginners will be able to pull off flashy, impressive combos without feeling like they're fighting the controls. All things considered, the difficulty tuning feels just right.
The tutorial, in all honesty, was fairly short and lacking. But since it was a demo, it is likely that the focus was less on trying to get everybody up to speed as to what all of the different powers were, and more on quickly getting us into the experience and having us figure things out as we played. This approach was fine for the demo, but there were a few powers, attacks, and skills that I probably didn't take advantage of as much as I should have because I wasn't quite sure exactly what was at my disposal.
The basic combo, the calling in of the knights, switching out sets of the knights, countering, and execution: those were my bread and butter during the time of the demo. However, I really would have wanted to try to figure out how these things affect one's play style and if there is room to customize Gwendolyn's fighting style. Regardless of all that, even for the base experience, it was still very satisfying to pull off combos, to juggle mobs, and to finish it all off with an execution.
Regarding audio, the creators seem to have settled on an overarching BGM theme. The demo mostly centered around the Great Russell Museum, which seems to serve as a hub to go to different worlds. There was a Chinese section, an Egyptian section, and a Japanese area as a secret sub-boss for a side quest. Going into each of these sections, the audio and the main theme of the background music changes, using instruments from each country. This has the subtle effect of showing the player they are in a different section by paying respects to the respective cultures.
If you look to the very nitty-gritty of the details, you might find minor inconsistencies. For example, there was a laptop that was still running, even though one of the screens was smashed and it had been running unplugged for who knows how long. But that is just absolute nitpicking. I also found that the voice acting was fairly limited within the demo, but the performances from Gwen, Niniane, and Mordred felt appropriate.
Concerns Going Into the Demo
I went into playing the demo with several questions and concerns:
・Will boss battles just be a collection of quick-time events?
・Will the game feel good to play on both controller and keyboard + mouse?
・Will the visual quality live up to what was shown in the trailers?
・Will the story suffer from jargon-dumping?
・Will it mainly be boss battles with little in between?
Will Boss Battles Be a Collection of QTEs?
The biggest worry was that the combat would be more or less just an on-rails fight where you would have to click buttons in a specific manner and deal with quick-time reactions.
My concerns about the combat were relieved when actually playing through the game and going through the boss fights, or at least the ones that they prepared for us. It seems like each boss has a gimmick or attack pattern that you have to deal with, learn, and adapt to on the spot rather than pressing X at this time one right after the other.
The bosses generally have several different stages to them, so beating them at their first run-through of their health bar will not generally be the end of the fight. That being said, the game is fairly forgiving when you die to a boss. At least for the Anubis one, if you die after being able to make it to the second stage, they will restart you back at the second stage. Each stage gradually scales up and gets a little bit more epic. Even for those, while there are points where you would have to know what the next steps are (such as dashing through specific areas for walls or energy walls, or having to platform through rocks being thrown at you), they are more or less choreographed.
But it doesn't act as just a QTE where you just press a button at the right timing. You also have to properly aim, and know which action to take at each point. So, in that sense, or at least for the non-colossal knights and bosses, I found that the combat employs a healthy mix of self-expression and choreographed fighting.
Will the Game Feel Good to Play on Keyboard & Mouse Too?
With the game coming out on consoles and PC, there was also a concern of whether or not gameplay would be created mainly with the controller scheme in mind, or if keyboard and mouse players would also find it pleasant to enjoy.
Having played with both controller and keyboard and mouse, either control scheme will be very easy to pick up, but I will say it may skew a little bit more towards controller. The controls themselves aren't necessarily an issue, but there was something that caused a bit of friction for me. There is a separate key for dodging/dashing (default left shift) and a separate key for a sprint toggle (default left alt). So, the dash button is used to dodge attacks, and then if you want to run, you have to separately press the toggle button.
I would have preferred if the dash and dodge button were the same, where pressing it the first time would allow you to dash and then holding it would allow you to continue running. Alternatively, if run is toggled, it would be nice if pressing dodge didn't cancel the sprint. Since both of these actions require movement and I would want for Gwendolyn to be in a faster-moving mode, I would prefer for these buttons to be put together.
While it didn't bother me too much or often get in the way of my playthrough, there were moments where I confused the two and pressed one instead of the other. I'm also a player who always wants to be moving at the fastest speed I can. Utimately, this might just be a skill issue, or something that bothers only me.
Does the Visual Quality Live Up to the Trailers?
Another concern was whether the visual quality itself would live up to what was shown in the trailers, or if there were going to be compromises made.
To put it plainly, the visuals of the game are gorgeous. The art direction is very good and it is essentially exactly what we saw from the gameplay trailers; perhaps even better, now that they've had time to polish it. To be honest, I am not often a fan of Unreal Engine 5 and will avoid it where I can. Not all UE games are bad, but if done poorly, they tend to have different artifacts or look very smeary or blurry. One of the biggest tells of a UE5 game are the particle effects, which can be needlessly bright and over-rely on motion blur.
Thanks to the art direction of the game, those hallmarks of UE are absent, or at least exist to a much less noticeable degree. There are still some classic UE5 quirks: pop-in, and when moving to a new cutscene, there is some sort of physics interaction that causes some wonkiness and motion blur smearing. But in the end, thanks to the speed of the battles and other masking techniques, I wasn't constantly reminded that it was a UE5 game.
The areas themselves are pretty grand, and the level design is reminiscent of God of War in that there are areas that are cordoned off to allow you to focus on enemy battles, and you are not able to leave them until the fight concludes. They wouldn't tell us exactly what the rig that we were playing on was, or what its specs were, but it was probably something very strong to create a smooth experience. As a result, we can't really speak to whether or not this will play smoothly on most rigs or how well-optimized it is. But at the very least, during our time playing through the demo, we didn't notice any major frame drops or have any hiccups during the battles themselves. There was some noticeable pop-in depending on how far certain things were, but perhaps this will be further optimized as development continues.
Did They Change Gwendolyn's Face?
There's been some hubbub on the internet recently noticing that Gwendolyn had her face changed. But to me, it doesn't look like her face really changed, but rather that the quality and details of her face were improved. And in fact, the developers have come out to confirm that her character design has not changed.
Looking at the side-to-side photo above, you can really see the jump in quality between the trailer and the demo.
Will the Story Suffer from Jargon-Dumping?
One of my pet peeves for some games is that they come up with a bunch of different terms for the sake of differentiation their world from the one we know. Having unique terms for worldbuilding in and of itself isn't an issue, but if the words come at you without any explanation, they become meaningless noise that is often ignored by the average player.
If the tutorial at the beginning of the demo was any indication as to how they plan to approach introducing concepts of the game to the users, then I'll be concerned. The tutorial wasn't a very good one, but again, it might have been something that was worked in just for the purposes of the demo to get us into the game quickly.
Essentially, all it did was ask us to press a button and, and then it threw some words at us to explain what it does: e.g., use the FogClaw and gain Fog Energy. But there wasn't nearly enough time to truly have it seep in and have us understand what it was that we were doing.
Presumably, there are points in the beginning of the game where a lot of these are explained, but for now, it seems like there is a focus on trying to keep the full picture of the story a mystery. There were still some words here or there that weren't fully explained as we played through the demo, and hopefully there will be a clearer picture with the full release so that we are not just saying, "Oh, collect shards, save world," without actually knowing what shards ARE, or muddling through a bunch of jargon in between the story and boss fights.
The saving grace is that the lore collectibles themselves seem to offer important explanations. Things such as Scarlet Thread, Fog, and Folded Realms are explained within what seems to be a glossary of sorts. That being said, I would still prefer that these things be explained more naturally through the progression of the game rather than requiring the player to go in and learn about them themselves.
Is There Content Outside of Just Boss Battles?
The final concern that I had coming into this was about the length and variety of content. Is it just going to be boss fight after boss fight? Will there be substories, subquests, or side quests that the player can enjoy? Will there be exploration and chances to find hidden secrets?
From what I could see, it does (thankfully) look like the game involves more than a simple progression of boss fights. The demo was limited to just the Russell Museum, but within it, we could see that it serves as a hub for accessing more major areas, such as the Egyptian area and the Japanese area, for different bosses. It also contains "challenge realms," separated instanced battles, for unlocking additional rewards.
There are also areas with puzzle-solving, which often require you to use the various abilities of the Knights. It feels very Zelda-esque, such as shooting arrows to release a platform, or having your knight Palamedes break down a wall or pick up a statue so you can jump onto it. Each fighting encounter eventually allows you to have executions, and there is a variety of execution animations. They were quite satisfying to watch.
I spent a good amount of time trying to cheese the fights by only spamming the basic attack and dodging and counters without using any Knight abilities, but it is actually quite difficult to do so. It is much easier to rely on the Knights.
There were also quick-time events, such as having Gwendolyn dodge out at the last moment. In the demo, if you did not get out of the way, it would pause until you pressed the correct button, but this could have just been a tutorial or something that didn't yet get added.
What We Learned from the Demo
Gwen is Beyond Just a "Cool" Character
In the gameplay trailer, Gwedolyn is established only as a woman who is out to save the world, but within the demo, we got to see other sides to her character. She originally seemed a lot cooler, more detached, and potentially in possession of a dark, tragic backstory.
But in the demo, as we saw her interact with Niniane and go through the museum, reminiscing about her time with her sister Lizzie, we can see that she's a deeply caring individual. We're shown that Lizzie is a pretty huge history buff and was very familiar with the museum. By coming to the museum often with her sister, Gwen herself also seems to have picked up on a lot of the details and information. We saw a softer side of her, too, as she interacted with Niniane and acted in an almost big sister kind of way. Although it's not yet clear which of the sisters is the elder and which is the younger, it certainly seems like Gwen is comfortable playing the role of big sister with Niniane.
As a result, we learned that while Gwen isn't afraid to tussle, she also has a lighthearted side. And, looking at how she interacts with her master, Guan Yu, we could also see that she is respectful. There is a bit of a concern that she might end up being a Mary Sue, where her characteristics don't go beyond being a nice, attractive female without any flaws, but given the limited scope of the demo, it's hard to tell exactly what kind of depth her character has.
At the very least, we were given a better glimpse as to who she is as a person than the trailers had initially shown.
What Certain Specific Terms Are
Coming into the demo, there were a lot of different terms from the game that weren't immediately explained, such as fog, Scarlet Threads, and Grail Shards, While we had some general idea (e.g., Scarlet Threads and Scarlet Water equal bad, or Grail Shards equal want), we were able to gain, through lore and world-building collectibles, a better understanding as to what these different things actually are.
The full picture still isn't there yet, and there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the actual events or why things happen the way that they are. But at the very least, we saw more of how these things tie into each other, and were were able to gain a better overall idea as to what is happening to the world and how they are all interconnected.
For example, we could glean that the Scarlet Threads have something to do with a character named Lady Elaine, who seems to be a sorceress or a witch of sorts, and who may even have caused all of this to begin with. The Grail Shards are, as expected, shards of the Holy Grail, but we also learned that all of the Knights of the Round Table hold onto these shards, and that collecting them will allow you to manipulate the fog: a conscious being of material energy, playing into the whole mystical aspect of the story.
Not An Adaptation of Arthurian Legend, but Rather an Interpretation
For people who are hoping for lore-accurate Arthurian legends, you may be disappointed to find that it is not a one-to-one retelling. While a lot of the game makes use of motifs and names from Arthurian legends, it doesn't necessarily depict the original stories or explore the characters in-depth. So, for anybody who was looking forward to that, unfortunately, Tides of Annihilation is not that kind of game.
Think of it more as something similar to Fate/Stay Night, where there are characters with the same names of legendary figures, but they are their own original interpretations. The main themes and motifs are kept, but not much beyond that. For example, the developers mentioned that they wanted somebody who uses the badge of a lion, so they went with Lamorak for that reason alone.
In terms of being very in-depth with the Arthurian legend itself, this is not going to be the case, and there are going to be a lot of liberties being taken with the characters. The usage of Arthurian names and motifs is more to serve the purpose of the story the devs want to tell, rather than to faithfully depict the story of the original legends.
I assume this will also be true for a lot of the other legendary figures that show up. Again, we know that Anubis and Guan Yu are amongst those that show up, and in a surprising twist, Geraint, a character of Arthurian legend, appears as a samurai in the Japanese portion of the Russell Museum.
The Introduction of Non-Arthurian Knights and Other Characters
Right from the start of the tutorial we see Guan Yu, a Chinese figure known as the Marshal Saint, run us through the different attacks as training. It was later revealed in a group interview with the devs that Guan Yu and Gwen have a temporary relationship as master and student. This immediately sets up the expectation that we're not limited to Arthurian characters within the game. We also encountered Anubis and a samurai armor-wearing Gawaint as boss fights within the Russell Museum.
So, at least for this section, we're very much not limited to characters from Arthurian legends. We also got to see several other characters we hadn't seen before, such as Mercury, two mute snake-like creatures that serve as merchants in the game, and Lady Elaine, who may be the true antagonist. There were also mentions of Arthur and Merlin, though we never actually got to see or meet them. And, for the first time, we heard Gwen's sister's name: Lizzie. While obviously short for Elizabeth, the name of the former real-life queen of London, we don't yet know if this bears any significance.
There's More to Mordred Than We Thought
The Mordred boss battle also revealed a little bit more nuance to her character than we initially saw in the State of Play trailer from a year ago. In the original trailer, she seemed to be more unhinged and generally antagonistic, but there was no real explanation as to why this is the case. Does she want to hurt or kill for the sake of hurting or killing? Maybe she wants to defend her honor as a Pendragon, or she sees Gwendolyn as a nuisance to be rid of, or she has a bit of an inferiority complex of sorts.
In the new gameplay demo, we received a little more clarity regarding her motives. We saw that she is after Niniane for some specific purpose, although this specific purpose unfortunately wasn't revealed. In the demo, she offered up, of her own accord, the Grail Shard, which is what Gwendolyn is very much looking to try to collect. In exchange, she wanted Niniane, saying a mysterious line: "She's the only lead I have."
She uttered the line with almost a look of desperation, noting it to be of personal importance to obtain Niniane, although we are not yet sure for what purpose. In-game, Gwendolyn doesn't seem to be aware of it either, but she doesn't want to just hand over Niniane without saying anything. Compared to the trailer from a year ago, we were able to see that there is a lot more nuance to the story and there is a lot more detail being added as to her motivations.
We also saw her power-ups and her ability to control knights as well, making her almost a direct rival of Gwendolyn's rather than a simple mean antagonist. It doesn't seem like she is the big bad in all of this, but rather (maybe) somebody who is at odds with Gwen without being an outright enemy. I think this might end up being more of a relationship like Dante and Virgil, where they might not agree with each other, but they will fight alongside each other.
At the end of the boss battle for Mordred and Gwendolyn, we saw a sword fly down. The sword looked exactly like the swords that we would see at the checkpoints. It could be that this is Excalibur and the person who came at the end, with seemingly demonic arms, is a corrupted King Arthur himself, but that is just pure speculation. Regardless, it is interesting to see that the sword design is exactly what we would see at the checkpoints or the Oathblade Throne.
What We Still Don't Know
The Reportedly Four Different Weapon Types
In terms of things that we still don't know and things that weren't answered, something of note that we didn't get to see in this playthrough demo is the different weapons that Gwendolyn is purportedly able to use. I believe there was some information out there in an interview talking about the different weapons that they are able to use: bows, fists, swords, and a fourth mystery one.
But within the game, we only saw Gwendolyn actually use a sword. Whether or not we will be able to equip other weapons seems to be in the works or to be seen at a later date. I have a nagging suspicion that these bows, fists, and mystery weapons are to be equipped by the knights rather than Gwendolyn herself, but this is still only conjecture on my part.
How Much Do Levels and Equipment Help?
Through the demo, we were playing Gwen at level 86, with no real sense of context as to whether that is a very high level or not. We also weren't able to determine how much levels help or play a role in the game itself, and having no context as to how much attack or defense is considered high or low was difficult. We did play with runes attached, and learned that some of the equipment has unique effects that can influence the way that you are able to approach different fights.
For example, there is equipment that allows you to revive once after dying, so having something like that would obviously be very powerful and very helpful. We do believe that this seemingly OP equip was prepared for the demo itself. It is still unclear how much these levels and RPG elements play a role in changing the gameplay. We also aren't sure if the knight abilities were already all unlocked for the purposes of the demo, or if they come unlocked by default. Would we need to level up our knights as well as ourselves, or are we able to fully access everything right off the bat?
Experience is obtained through battles, whether it be from boss battles or regular mobs, but again, given the level that we were at, it was hard to determine the difficulty of leveling up.
What Exactly Happened to the World and Gwendolyn?
Having started the demo in the middle of the story, we didn't see the actual calamity that destroyed London, and know how things got to be the way that they are. We didn't get to learn much about Gwendolyn's family, how she met Niniane, or how she became Guan Yu's disciple. Presumably, these things were shown in an earlier chapter of the game. Similarly, we still don't know how the giant bosses and the different giant boss levels are supposed to be like within the game.
There is the promise of having these giant knights be climbable and used as part of the level themselves and, and of having these epic, fantastical Shadow of the Colossus-type battles with these giant knights, but we weren't able to see any of that; the battles we got to experience were more character action-style boss fights.
Who is the Voice Actress Replacing Jennifer English?
A lot of excitement built up when Jennifer English, who has previously played Shadowheart in Baldur's Gate 3 and Maelle in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, was announced to play Gwendolyn. That excitement then soured when she announced she had to step down due to health reasons.
While disappointed that she wouldn't be able to see the role all the way through, people are waiting with bated breath as to who will be announced to take her place.
Playing through the demo and speaking with the devs, we still don't know who the new voice actress for Gwen is as of yet. As far as I can tell, new lines were recorded, but it is hard to tell to my untrained ears if it was a new voice actress doing these lines or if the game was still using lines previously recorded by Jennifer English.
There have been rumors and reports that Angela Sant'Albano, who recently played Grace in Resident Evil Requiem, would be taking over the role. But these seem to be unsubstatiated rumors and the developers have not yet officially announced a name yet.
How is the Performance?
We also don't know exactly how well this will perform. We played the demo on pre-prepared PCs, and we couldn't exactly tell what kind of graphics card or how much power each rig had. Clearly, they probably prepared very nice ones for the demo. Throughout the playthrough, it was very smooth. There was no frame counter, but it felt like a consistent 60 throughout. Obviously, there were moments of pop-in, but it didn't reduce or slow down the overall experience at all.
The devs mentioned that NVIDIA really helped out with different techniques for trying to optimize the game and trying to smooth out a lot of the frame issues, so some form of DLSS is being utilized. Coming back to the gameplay and looking through the screenshots, the ghosting seems a bit more obvious, but during my playthrough, at the very least, outside of just the desert area, there weren't obvious moments of the typical AI upscaling issues, ghosting, or other problems that took me out of the moment.
What is the Scale of the Game?
We were also unable to really ascertain exactly how many substories or submissions there will be within the game itself. Again, this was a very controlled demo, so the only sub-missions that we received were the one to find Geraint within the Japanese portion of the museum, and one challenge realm. There were no indications that there might be side quests that would require things beyond just fighting a boss or maybe exploring an area.
So, in this two-hour demo itself, there were four bosses: Mordred, Anubis, Geraint, and then Redrend, who stands out for not seemingly being based on Arthurian legends. Not only that, after looking up Redrend online, I wasn't able to find any information on them, so this might be an original character. But they were fairly mysterious: a wild-looking character in tattered crimson cloak, seemingly wielding dimensional opening abilities that could cut rifts into space. Exactly who this character is remains to be seen.
Also, we weren't able to actually go outside of the museum or get a feeling for the size of the world. We do know that they will be adding major landmarks and major areas around London, and presumably we will be able to explore and warp to and fro from them, as we were able to in the demo. But exactly to what scale, that is not yet known.
Given the idea that there is going to be colossal knights, it is likely going to be much larger; dozens if not a hundred times larger than the demo that we were able to play through, but again, a lot of this is just conjecture. We did confirm with the developers that the 30-hour estimate of the gameplay was actually false and this was never officially confirmed. They are still adding things in, so there is no final estimation as to how long the game itself is.
From that, we can surmise that it may be even more than just 30 hours. Just the boss fights alone, getting through four of them back-to-back, would have required about an hour. But these bosses were adjusted for the demo, so including time for exploration, leveling up, understanding your equipment, upgrading your equipment, and so on, we can expect a fairly long experience.
Is It Worth the Hype?
I think the hype it's receiving is well-deserved, and I'm excited to see what the final product brings. The entire experience was fun and satisfying. Everything from the architecture to the world design and the art direction highlights the proven strength of many Chinese studios: flashy appeal. Everything is on a bigger scale, the fights are over the top, and everyone use movements with that mystical push-and-pull "Star Wars Force"-like quality (known in Asian cultures as qi/chi/ki). All of it adds up to an experience that just feels cathartic.
What I am hoping to see is the varieties of player expression that will be afforded to the player by unlocking the different knights, and also perhaps the different weapons. I do still want to see exactly how much of a role equipment plays in making things easier throughout this game. There are three different difficulty levels: easy, standard, and hard. We played through standard, but it would be interesting to see how difficult the hard mode is and how easy the easy mode is. If we are able to get the chance again, we would love to explore those things a little bit more.
For now, though, I think most players can look forward to a very exciting, exhilarating action game. We will be releasing an article of our exclusive one-on-one sitdown interview with the developers for even more insights, as well as doing a gameplay deep dive into the specific points of the demo, so keep an eye out for those.
Don't see information you were hoping to read about? Ask your questions down in the comment section and we may just try to answer them!
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