- Ashen dev's stunning new game, Flintlock, looks nothing like the studio's debut - 11 May 2022
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn has been looking quite exciting since the moment of its reveal. Today, developer A44 unenvied what inspired the design of the game's world, and how a small team could create such detailed characters and environments. The developer based Flintlock's original fantasy open world on its native New Zealand. The game has three major diverse zones, each offering a new environment inspired by locales of the beautiful country - from deep caverns to mountainous peaks. Rewarding exploration is major goal for A44 when designing Flintlock's world, so it won't just look pretty. Taking things a step further to add detail to every facet of the game's presentation, A44 is relying on Unreal Engine's MetaHuman Creator to design believable characters. Read more
- Ashen's Epic Store exclusivity ends, it's now on Steam and GOG - 9 December 2019
A little over a year ago, action RPG Ashen from AA4 and Annapurna Interactive was one of the most wishlisted games on Steam. That changed abruptly when Ashen became one of the first Epic Games Store limited exclusives, along with Supergiant Games' RPG Hades, which pushed back its Steam release by a full year. That year has come and gone (somehow) and Ashen is now available on Steam and GOG . ( Hades launches on Steam tomorrow ).  As you might expect for a game that's been out on another platform for a year, Ashen is discounted 20% on both sites, though it remains at full price on EGS . Purchasing it bundled with its Nightstorm Isle DLC from Steam will also get you a 20% discount, and the DLC can be purchased separately for 20% off on GOG as well. As for how well it will sell (and what the reviews will look like) on Steam and GOG a year after its Epic Store launch, that re…
- Game DNA: Making yourself a home - 24 October 2019
Game DNA is a series where we take a single concept from games, strip it to its essence, and look at how it — and we — have developed over time. I was homeless when I discovered Minecraft — not homeless in the street-sleeping sense, thankfully. Only in the sofa-surfing sense. I had a bed, even. The creaking cabin bed of two friends who took pity on me and let me crash for a few months in their house, while I sullied my fingertips with sambuca in a dank Yorkshire nightclub for part-time pound coins. My chin-scratching uni days had just ended, but I stubbornly refused to go back to my family house in Northern Ireland. I could do this, I reasoned, I just needed time. Then my friend showed me how to punch a tree, and I found a new home. (more…)
- The 10 best games like Dark Souls - 2 October 2019
Sorry, definition nerds. Soulslike is a word now. Disgusting, I know, but this is how genres are made. Along comes a giant like Dark Souls that everybody won t stop bleating about and soon it has copycats. Before you know it, a swarm of like-minded games with sparse checkpoints and lethal attacks are scuttling around, leaving slime trails and biting your ankles for surprisingly massive damage. Ugh, soulslikes. But stoop low to appreciate these little monsters, and among them you ll find some very good games about dying. Here are ten of the best. (more…)
- Moody co-op action-RPG Ashen's Nightstorm Isle DLC launches next week - 4 September 2019
Developer A44's brooding co-op action-RPG, Ashen, is plopping its (no doubt sombre) expansion hat on next week with the arrive of its Nightstorm Isle DLC, coming to Xbox One and the Epic Store on Monday, 9th September. Nightstorm Isle, according to publisher Annapurna Interactive, sees players accompanying a mother on a quest to find her missing daughter - a search that will lead the pair into the depths of new location Nightstorm Isle. "Countless horrors lurk below," says Annapurna, "yet nothing will prepare you for the ancient evil they imprison." There's a taste of the terrors to come in the trailer below. Read more
- Moody co-op action-RPG Ashen coming to PS4 and Switch in December - 28 August 2019
Following a year of Epic Games Store and Xbox One exclusivity, developer Aurora44's brooding co-op action-RPG, Ashen, will be shaking off its shackles and heading to PlayStation 4 and Switch on 9th December - and it'll be arriving on Steam and GOG the same day. Ashen wonderfully stylish fantasy action blends stamina-based third-person melee combat and open-world exploration, and casts players forth on a journey out across a bleak, time-ravaged world. While on their travels, adventurers can encounter and recruit comrades to help them tackle Ashen's challenges, defeat imposing bosses, and expand their slowly growing settlement. The twist, however, is that these anonymous friends might, at times, be other fellow human players, and not just NPCs. Despite the fact that Ashen, almost inevitably, sometimes struggles to escape from the shadow of From Software's Souls series, which remains a hea…
- Ashen will drop Epic Games Store exclusivity and arrive on Steam and GOG this year - 26 August 2019
A44's broody, beautiful Souls-like Ashen will drop its Epic Games Store exclusivity and make its way to other digital storefronts in December, one year and a little change after it was unveiled as an EGS launch title—which is also when the yearlong exclusivity period was announced.  Ashen will be available on both Steam and GOG December 9 according to a trailer released today, which you can view above. While it's true that Ashen cribs liberally from Dark Souls' mechanics, it is tonally very much its own game. It puts you in the shoes of a wanderer, and as you explore its somber world you gradually convince the people you encounter to join your fledgling settlement, gradually creating a community that feels alive. In his Ashen review , Joe Donnelly writes "Ashen echoes the core mechanics of Dark Souls, but it does so with such finesse that it hardly matters." F…
- Ashen s unreliable friends are my favourite NPCs in a long while - 8 January 2019
I went into Ashen with certain expectations. Not of quality, but of mood. It sets out its Dark Soulsbut stall right away, with talk of disasters and darkness and god-level menaces, and so I shifted my brain into the familiar gears of isolation and doomy solitude. These, experience has taught, are lonely adventures in hostile places only the broken corpses will ever witness my successes and failures, and the world will not care if I live, die or die and die and die again. A night drive on a lost highway, no other car but mine. Except… That didn t happen. The expected coldness welcome as it is, for it means I am in a place where my triumphs and failures are mine and mine alone, serving no other agenda did not envelop me. Instead, Ashen makes me feel warm – and makes me feel that I have friends. (more…)
- Ashen review - 18 December 2018
Some people will argue the 'Soulslike' label needs to die. They'll tell you it's overused, hackneyed and that there are other catch-all terms to describe hybrid ARPGs, which don't rely on comparison, even when it's the best fit. I think these people are wrong. Ashen, a low-fantasy action role-player developed by A44 and published by Annapurna Interactive, closely echoes many of the ideas and systems found in From Software's Dark Souls series. It knows exactly who its audience is, and, for all intents and purposes, is a Soulslike game. And it's a bloody good one.  In place of Estus Flasks, for example, Ashen gives players sap-filled Crimson Gourds that deliver health boosts in limited supply. In the absence of Souls, Ashen trades in Scoria—a currency farmed from fallen enemies that helps facilitate progression. As is law in Miyazaki&apo…
- Wot I Think: Ashen - 17 December 2018
Developer: A44 Publisher: Annapurna Interactive Release: December 7, 2018 On: Windows From: Epic Price: 35, $40, 40 If you re summoning Dark Souls , you have to be prepared to make a deal with the Capra Demon. In this pact, you will be granted the power of From Software s ideas, yes, but you will also be doomed to comparison. You ll only be seen in the light of that which came before. Ashen has made such a pact, and it invites that comparison especially often. It sticks so closely to the Souls formula it could be a dream Hidetaka Miyazaki once had. But lapsed hollows who look closely will also find that it uses the template to create its own mythology and its own admirable spirit, one of restoration rather than decay. If Dark Souls is a tale of perpetual, cyclical death and redeath, Ashen feels like tramping through a creation myth as it s still being told. I like it a lot. (more&hellip…
- Podcast: The year 2018 is sinking and only 3 games can be saved - 13 December 2018
Look out. The year 2018 is going down in a storm. There are hundreds of games aboard, running, jumping, trying their best to survive the maelstrom. But there s only one tiny lifeboat, and only enough room for three games. It falls on the sorry shoulders of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show , to decide which trio of games clamber onto the life raft and which games drown and become lost to history. (more…)
- Ashen s wonky multiplayer has been un-wonked - 13 December 2018
If you’ve been struggling to hook up with ghost pals in newfangled Soulsian RPG Ashen , you should give your dating profile an overhaul. If you’ve just been trying to play the videogame with them, then good news! Developers Aurora44 have fixed an issue preventing some players from accessing multiplayer, leaving them stuck with AI companions rather than a humans. That’s good, because co-op in the Dark Souls vein (where a silent stranger appears and you occasionally bow at each other) is one of Ashen’s key selling points. All the other selling points also involve being a lot like Dark Souls, which is either FINE or AWFUL depending on which member of the RPS treehouse gives you the scariest look. (more…)
- Four days since launch, Ashen developer still trying to fix PC multiplayer - 11 December 2018
UPDATE 12/12/18: It looks like Ashen's PC multiplayer woes are over, as A44 Games has announced the issues plaguing the game since launch have now been fixed. A new patch is currently available to download from the Epic Games Store, and should help resolve the connection issues experienced by players over the past few days. Along with the update, A44 Games has also created an FAQ page to help players navigate the game's multiplayer elements, many of which had been causing confusion. Although it took them a few days to figure it out, A44 Games has at least been pretty good at keeping players updated on the situation. The developer thanked the community for their patience and Epic for their support in issuing the fix. Hopefully A44 Games won't have to keep putting out fires in Ashen any time soon. Read more…
- Epic s store launches with exclusives from Supergiant & Coffee Stain - 7 December 2018
In case you hadn’t gleaned this detail from today’s many posts mentioning games launching on Epic’s Store: Epic’s new digital games store has now opened for business . While their “hand-curated set of games” only includes four you can actually buy right now, one of them is the surprise new game from the makers of Bastion and that’s not a bad coup. Epic Games have managed to wangle some other upcoming hot exclusives too, including PlayStation darling Journey and Coffee Stain’s first-person factory-builder Satisfactory (which has scrapped its plans for a Steam release). To tempt players into installing another store client, Epic plan to give away a game every fortnight, starting with the splendid Subnautica. (more…)
- Ashen is a gorgeous open world Souls-like that does just enough to stand out - 7 December 2018
In the opening scenes of the game a god-sized magic bird explodes and brings sunshine back to the world. Congratulations, you’ve won! Sort of. The holy light still needs to be protected and you, a rando with a stick, are the one to do it. Defending the light involves lots of locking on, dodging through sweeping enemy blows, and executing light and strong attacks until the red health bars are all gone. It’s Dark Souls, everybody. Instead of bonfires you have magic rocks. Instead of an Estus health flask you have a ‘Crimson Gourd’ that restores every time you rest at a bonf—magic rock. When you die you drop your money, but it can be recovered if you return to your old corpse without dying again. Hello, have you seen my face anywhere? Pale imitation I can’t knock it. The formula works, and Ashen’s washed-out world is lovely. The opening area…
- Ashen review - a soulful journey through a sublime ruined world - 7 December 2018
Ashen is about exploring and cleansing a newly radiant world, but it's often at its best in the dark. A few hours into this derivative but engrossing third-person RPG, there's a quest that takes you deep below ground in search of a corrupted giantess queen. Entering her realm is an ordeal - the nearby hills are alive with other giants who are fond of leaping on your head, to say nothing of coyote-type predators that breath fire - but the catacombs themselves are something else. The surface world's packs of club-wielding vagrants give way, here, to more treacherous breeds of foe. Skeletons who lunge from their dust as you pass (in a masterful bit of risk-reward design, you can shatter them with one blow if you catch them mid-resurrection), and wraiths who evaporate on contact only to pounce from the blackness. Wall-crawlers with peeled-open chests who lurk below ledges, popping up behind…
- Here's the first slate of games on the Epic Games Store - 7 December 2018
Epic has revealed the first slate of games coming to the Epic Games Store , which is now live. The list is headlined by new games from Bastion maker Supergiant, Abz developer Giant Squid and Killing Floor studio Tripwire. There's a mix of games out now and games coming soon, as well as some currently free games, such as Subnautica. The Epic Games Store is the Fortnite and Unreal engine company's attempt to take on Steam. It offers developers 88 per cent revenue share, which is more than Valve's 70 per cent standard. Read more…
- Ashen is a roleplaying game about unknowingly roleplaying an NPC - 27 November 2018
Developer: Aurora44 Publisher: Annapurna Interactive Release: 2018, supposedly In most video games, you re the hero. You might be the foretold chosen one or of more humble means, but in any case, the game still revolves around your agency and impact on the world. This fantasy falls apart quickly in multiplayer games, where if everyone is the hero, then surely no one is. Ashen might have the solution to this. Join a friend or stranger on a quest, and you’ll unknowingly step into the shoes of an NPC while still appearing as the hero from your own solipsistic screen. It s kind of confusing, but when you play it, it s so natural that people don t care, laughs developer Aurora44 s creative director Derek Bradley. (more…)
- Brooding co-operative action-RPG Ashen will be out by the end of this year, says dev - 19 October 2018
Developer Aurora44 has confirmed that its long-awaited co-operative action-RPG, Ashen, is still due to launch on Xbox One and PC before 2018 is through - despite the lack of release date news so close to the end of the year. Ashen - a game that was first revealed during the Xbox E3 media briefing in 2015 - has been loosely pencilled in for a 2018 release for a while now, but time has continued to tick on with little further word from Aurora44, leading some to wonder if plans had changed. However, in a recent tweet , the developer confirmed that things are still on schedule - which means we can narrow its launch down to one of the only two remaining months (and a bit) of the year. The last significant look we got at Ashen - at its stylish fantasy aesthetic, its stamina-based melee combat, and its brooding, open world setting - was at this year's Gamescom and, joyously, it was (as you can…
- 10 PC games we re still looking forward to in 2018 - 17 September 2018
As we stare into the weary, craggy face of the final quarter of 2018, there is still a glimmer of hope. The games are not yet done. They will never be done. And the impending release of them, some close, some a little further away, stirs something within us. The delicate, easily crushed butterfly of excitement. We may catch it yet, to keep in our collection of emotions – the sharp pin of time pushed through and through it into the cork of eventual disappointement. (more…)
