Back in the day when cutting edge FPS graphics meant having fancier sprites than other guy, Hexen was a notable standout since it gave you spells and magical axes instead of guns. Experience something like that as you follow your sister Into the Pit (demo).
In Into the Pit, the cursed town is your hub where you return between your delves into the pit (ha). In the pit, you get a to pick one of the random spells for one hand, another for the other, take a defensive power, and then accrue upgrades and wealth as you go deeper.Motes are your currency. Some types are only useful inside the delve, as they allow you to reroll spell upgrades or come back after dying. Others go back to the world with you and can be used in stores. Runes, meanwhile, are meta upgrades that can be applied to the entire run/delve.In each layer of the pit, you’ll be asked to close chambers. But chambers have a dual nature; you choose which version to enter to get a (mutually exclusive) reward. Inside the chamber, you need to destroy these keystones, all while dodging demons and traps, and collecting motes.Closing chambers presents you with upgrades for your powers – random sets, of course, but you can use motes to reroll the choices. Some upgrades are more exciting than others.And while having upgradeable spell gun-arms is fun, the demons are less so. Just kind of hard to care for these awkward lo-res bozos ambling about.Back in town, you engage with Bloodborne-pattern indoor peasants. Many of the vendors require you to save a certain number of their compatriots from the depths before they open up. Also, peep that “Demo-gorgon” pun.All in all, Into the Pit demo showed what is certainly a retro FPS with some rogue-like elements. I wasn’t very impressed by it, largely due to the monster and the pit environments being so meh. Which is a shame, because just look at that Cthulhu sky!
