Demons Age gamescom Preview

My first thought when I get a glimpse of Bigmoon Games’ adventure-RPG hybrid Demons Age is that it looks like an updated Baldur’s Gate. The game throws the player into the world of Moragon, where demons have infested the land, terrorising its native races and nations. You take the role of a hero with the ultimate aim of defeating the evil incursions.

Demons Age features turn-based battles, where your hero and their companions can use various skills, abilities and magic spells to defeat the gangs of enemies in front of them. Movement is performed via a grid, with the battles jumping out at the player as they make their way through the medieval isometric overworld. Players will initially start as a convict promised freedom in exchange for completing quests, of which Bigmoon promises there will be a huge number - as well as the game’s main storyline, sidequests are scattered throughout the game world via interaction with characters and job boards at local inns.

The player can hire a number of companions along the way to help them battle enemies, though Demons Age brings something extra to the mix - and a feature that surprised me slightly. Your companions are not silent yes-men who will do your every bidding but characters with personalities, likes and dislikes. If you upset them too much they will leave your party or worse - turn on you in battle. We were shown a combat scene where a halfling companion is enraged by the player’s continual slaughtering of goblins and goes berserk, immediately making the battle harder for the main character.

Combat in Demons Age is all about strategy, and it seems that there will be a lot of it as the battles take far longer than what you would expect from your typical RPG. There are very few one hit kills and McGuffin spells that can wipe out entire enemy teams. The player has to be smart, skillful and have the ability to play their cards right in order to progress. The AI in the game will also bog the player down in battles if they’re too noisy when traversing dungeons or too visible in sneaky locations.

Demons Age, despite its isometric perspective, is a good looking game. The lighting and atmospheric touches that Bigmoon has put work into really pay off - much like another of their titles, Syndrome, the lighting helps to give otherwise dull backdrops like inns and caves depth and character. With the game still in development and a release slated for the end of 2016 or Q1 2017, there are some features that still need ironing out and a few textures out of place or covered up by placeholders at the moment, but the game looks like one that isometric RPG fans should add to their collection.