Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms Preview

It's easy to be cautious on Steam.  In the inevitable "Should I Buy This" thread for Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms, I said the following:

"Remember Illusion of Gaia for SNES? Remember the mechanic that allowed you to capture and switch between heroes to accomplish different tasks? Remember its speed of gameplay and combat?

Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms is an excellent spiritual descendant of that tradition.

It lacks the frenetic speed of Torchlight and the graceful combat of Grim Dawn, but it more than makes up with superior graphics, sound, and interface. The voice acting talent is incredible.

This is not a cash grab. This is a heavily inspired, from-the-heart ARPG. It's different than the games it gets compared to, but in many ways, it's far richer."

-Aubrielle"

You may have already seen that quote appear on RPGCodex (as well as a few other places), but it's what I believe.  I just wish I'd said more.


Twenty years ago this past September, Enix released Illusion of Gaia for SNES in North America.  It was revolutionary at the time for allowing the protagonist to shift into the forms of other heroes to perform a number of different tasks in his lengthy quest.  In all the games that Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms gets compared to, I'm surprised at how little this game gets mentioned.

When we think of ARPG, we think, "kill-and-loot".  Diablo.  Torchlight.  Grim Dawn.  Sacred.  They're all great games in their own right, and loads of fun.  But where's the story?  Sure, it's there, but it almost seems like an afterthought, buried underneath the fever pace of killing and looting and killing some more.

Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms is story.

You're serenaded into the world by the velvet voice of Tom Baker, whom you may know as the fourth Doctor from Doctor Who, and an integral member of the Kult: Heretic Kingdoms cast.  You're already in an urgent situation, and choices are fully voiced from both characters and NPCs.  Thrust into the story in this way, you immediately see that story isn't peripheral here.  It's at the core of your experience from the beginning.

Evia discovers her family's legacy and her purpose.

As you enter the prologue and step into the shoes of the game's first character, you may notice that combat isn't as graceful as, say, Diablo or Grim Dawn.  It's a little bulky, a little slower.  My personal tastes disagreed with this at first - I wanted speed and finesse.  But I pushed on, and was rewarded.

As the game begins, you assume the role of the main character, a demon, and you're given a choice of three starting protagonists.  You can play as a skilled ranger, a feared barbarian, or a powerful sorceress.  I chose Evia, who is a pyromancer and a princess of the Garulian Imperial line.  The demon teams up with your chosen protagonist, and you quickly find that it's necessary to switch back and forth between the two to accomplish different tasks.  Maybe a bridge is out, like the shoddy broken bridges in the catacombs underneath the town of Thole, which is where you start.  These architectural failures can be crossed by switching to the demon.  In his realm, they have glowing magical bridges that never crumble.

Switching back to your mortal hero can navigate you through other parts of dungeons, and let you interact normally in towns.  You get different music and ambiance, too.  The shadow realm is a place of muffled noises and whispers.  Coming back to the mortal realm feels like coming up out of water, and more upbeat music plays as your world returns to vibrant color.  Switching realms like this is fun - it really feels like coming back to life.  One effect I loved is the barely-noticeable shadowy vignette that surrounds your screen in the mortal world, as if the demon is constantly reminding you of the oppressive pact you've made with him, and who's actually running the show.

The Guild of Silk in Thole.

The game's orchestrated soundtrack is another gem, and I've seen people requesting it.  From the game's epic opening theme to the arid, flute-dominated tracks that accent your time in the dry, once-prosperous town of Thole, the soundtrack adds another precious layer of depth to the game.

Another interesting system is the Realm of Souls.  It's not a proper 'player home', as such, but it serves as a place for the demon and his puppets to rest and regroup and for the demon to buy gear for his own use.  It's only possible to carry around three mortal heroes at once, so the rest have to be left here.  There are locations called 'cenotaphs' scattered throughout the world where you have the option of refilling your health and coming back to the Realm of Souls.  If you decide that you need different heroes in your arsenal, return here to manage your group.

Much fuss is made in games about player choices impacting the world, and it's one thing S:HK does well.  In my first playthrough, I made the mistake of fumbling a quest.  There's a filthy drunk man in the town of Thole who murdered his wife, and is willing to pay you to dispose of her remains in the burial ground.  I accepted, went into the tomb, and just did it without thinking.  Then I switched to the Demon, and was hit with a hard dose of reality.  The woman's spirit lingered in the town, cursing me bitterly.  She could never rest now because of me, because of what I did.  Choices matter, and I learned that the hard way.  This isn't Sacred 2, where you can just skate through on quest after quest, mindlessly killing and looting and turning in quests for XP.  You need to keep your brain turned on and ready here.

* * *

I ran into Peter Nagy from Games Farm on Steam.  Despite how frantically busy his studio is in preparing the game for release, he took time out to speak with me at great detail.  I pulled him aside and asked him some tough questions.


Emma: One area people give you criticism is for your combat system.  Fans of games like Diablo and Path of Exile like their combat fast and destructive - killing lots of things quickly and brutally is a big selling point.  What was your vision behind S:HK's combat system?  Why the system you have, and not something in the Diablo style?

Peter: We never wanted to develop another Diablo clone - click fests and dungeon crawling for better items. We of course can't deny some inspiration with Diablo series as we feature real-time combat and Diablo defines [the] action RPG genre. Our original idea was to create more strategic real-time combat system. However, it proved quite complicated and difficult to understand so we had to simplify the combat a bit. The result is the combat you can currently experience in Shadows.

Furthermore, combat is important, but Shadows offers a lot of other features which distinguish Shadows from most of its competitors... The scope of the dialogues, narrative content, story, history are just a few to mention…

At last, games like Diablo and Path of Exile are dungeon crawlers and such gameplay requires randomly generated items where the player can crawl dungeons in search for items a few % better than the others. Instead we believe in authenticity. We have thousands of items in Shadows already and more will come later. But, unlike dungeon crawlers, each item has its place in Heretic Kingdoms universe, has own history and proper descriptions. We simply lean more towards Baldur's Gate/Fallout system as it gives us more space to shape [the] Heretic Kingdoms universe...

I understand the criticism on the combat system from the players. We are trying to make it differently and it unavoidably may bring also negative reactions. We will definitively follow up on the reactions very closely and look for the best solutions to improve the gameplay of Shadows. Shadows made a long way from the launch of Early Access already but it is still only at the beginning of its journey. I expect that our work only starts with the release and future will bring many great games from Heretic Kingdoms universe. We definitively plan to support the community, implement the feedbacks and shape Shadows according to the reactions of the players...

Combat is the only gripe I personally have with the game.  If it were a little faster, more streamlined, with slightly more impressive visuals for spells and abilities, I feel like combat would make a far deeper impact.

In the catacombs beneath the town of Thole.

But I wanted to know more about where Games Farm's creative impulses came from.

Emma: What games/movies/anything would you count as your biggest creative influences for S:HK?

Peter: Our biggest inspirations would be perhaps Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, Diablo and Dota games. We are of course also affected by other fantasy RPG titles, books and movies but in much lower scale…

And the voice acting!  Between Tom Baker's incredible talent and what I assume is a less restrictive creative environment, S:HK's voice deliveries are top notch.  I had to ask about it.

Emma: S:HK's voice acting is some of the best I've ever heard, hands down.  I'm especially a fan of the narrator - his delivery was incredible.  What was it like to work with Tom Baker?

Peter: I am glad you like the voice acting. We spent a lot of efforts and resources to casting and the voice production. It is definitively our biggest voice production we did to date. We spent weeks recording in the studios with the actors – it was really very nice experience. Tom Baker was very professional – we worked with him ten years ago on the first Kult and I think it is great that we were able to make the return to Heretic Kingdoms together with Tom. I hope we will work together also on the future games from Heretic Kingdoms as it would be very hard to find the adequate replacement for Tom’s performance.

Emma: What's in store for S:HK?  I see that it will be released in two parts - Book 1 comes out this year, and we can expect Book 2 in 2015.  Are there any plans in the works for DLC's or expansions?  What kind of characters can we look forward to meeting?

Peter: Yes, Book 2 will close the tale of Shadows, but we are already discussing the content for Book 3 and possible expansions. We hope that Shadows will be successful and its success will allow us to continue working on more games from Heretic Kingdoms universe as well as bring additional Books and expansions for Shadows. As for characters – current set of characters will accomplish in Book 2 with several interesting and prominent characters. I shall bite my tongue not to reveal too much...

I also hope that the community will use our post-release support and will create own modifications and content.

Aha.  Modding.  An excellent point, and it's a feature Games Farm seems serious about.  In a lengthy Steam thread where a dedicated modder made a playable scorpion (!), Peter talked a bit about Games Farm's plans for S:HK's moddability.

Emma: On the topic of modding, I saw you say:

(Peter) "We want to allow you to add custom characters - entire new characters, new skills. It only requires some minor changes in the code and thus pulling the characters out of the code entirely, so you will be able to add your own characters and place them in the game.

In the moment our resources are tied with the upcoming release and bug fixing, but as soon as the game is out, we will make the adjustments and we will release the update, which will allow you to add your own characters, together with the instructions [on] how to do it...

Please bear with us for a few more days until the game is released; we will be able to provide you better support and tools afterwards :)"

Emma: Is there anything else you'd like to add about modding?  Will we see Steam Workshop or Nexus support?

Peter: Yes, of course...Steam workshop support is intended. I just would like to point out that we will do our best to support the people in modifying our game in any way they would like to. We designed most of the technology with this in mind – and parts which may still be rigid we hopefully will be able to replace after release of the game to allow full modification of Shadows. It may be a good opportunity for players to look [at] how RPGs can be developed.


Emma: What kind of improvements can we expect for the crafting system as the game moves forward?

Peter: The crafting system should be more or less complete. We think we will expand it in terms of new items, potions and components in the game; but the basic functionality already allows creating anything from anything. We will consider some enchanting in the future, but it is quite early to talk about it in the moment…

It works like this: you buy recipes from vendors, then visit the crafting anvil in town and set to crafting.  Having a recipe in your inventory adds it to the "Recipes" part of your journal, giving you access to those recipes from then on, even if you sell off the original copy.  Clicking on the item in the crafting interface tells you what you need.  Drag your ingredients in, hit the crafting button, and done.  I might like to see hints, like in Guild Wars 2, where it told you if you were getting close to making something useful; it would be fun for people that like to experiment and come up with things.  As it stands, I love that you have to visit a crafting bench to make your items.  Being able to do it on the fly, wherever you are in the world (Divinity: Original Sin), seems a touch unrealistic to me.  S:HK's crafting bench adds immersion.

A dedicated crafting anvil, seen here in the middle of the night.

* * *

If you consider yourself an ARPG fan, you might ask yourself what it is you like about your favorites.  Is it speed?  Fun ways to blow up your enemies all at once, as in Diablo and Grim Dawn?  If that's what keeps you coming back to the ARPG's you love, then you may think about passing on Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms.  S:HK is not a kill-and-loot ARPG, and it never claims to be.  But if strong story and narrative are the things you need in an RPG of any kind, then Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms will be a faithful friend that won't disappoint.

S:HK has drawn some fire for its loot system.  Players used to bursting corpses open like pinatas for fountains of loot will find it difficult to adjust to the standardized loot system of S:HK.  I think it's important to emphasize here what Games Farm explicitly stated - S:HK was never about the loot, and it never will be.  They want story to take center stage.  This may make loot fans feel a little alienated, but people who aren't as focused on drops won't mind.  Still, I may like to see weapons and armor drop just a little more, since you're often forced to go back to town if you want better gear.

The current combat feels bulky and a touch awkward, and I think S:HK's critics have a valid point here.  It's not a stretch to imagine this game with a lightning-fast, Ys-style style combat system, and such an improvement would send this game over the top in terms of addictive gameplay.  Changing the speed of combat also wouldn't necessarily sacrifice the vision the developers had for the battle system, but it would make those long stretches of traveling from goal to goal - such as in the Outlands - far less grindy and way more exciting.  I'll put it on my personal wishlist and hope Games Farm takes the suggestion to heart.  As it is, it's the only real weak spot the game has, since it delivers a satisfying experience in every other way.

I love Diablo and Grim Dawn, and I even liked Torchlight 2.  But in playing Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms, I found a truly grownup ARPG, and a richer experience than many titles in the genre.