When your game’s press release describes it as “Doom meets Hades,” that comes across as a big boast, as if to announce that you’ve created the gaming equivalent of the world’s greatest surf and turf. How can your game possibly back up such a claim? Well, calling it “Kill Knight” is a good start. After all, who wouldn’t want to play a game called Kill Knight? And at today’s Tripe-i Initiative presentation, that’s indeed what PlaySide Studios served up, debuting the game with a rather eye-catching trailer, as seen below (with a content warning, as it does contain flashing lights).
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Kill Knight sees players playing as the titular knight, one who has fallen from grace. They’ve been banished to a deep world of horrors known as the Abyss, forced to an eternal death as they’re reduced to a desecrated corpse inside a reanimated suit of armor. Now they battle against endless forces of demons, monsters and other otherworldly horrors, heading through multiple layers of the Abyss with one final goal in mind: Kill the last angel. Why? Well, that seems to still be a bit of a mystery for now, though we can only assume that it has something to do with the ominous voice talking to Kill Knight.
So going back to the original comparison made, Kill Knight borrows from Doom in terms of its aesthetics and setting, but it also combines the more fast-paced action of similar ’90s action games with the top-down isometric action of Hades, except with many, many more enemies trying to kill you. The longer you survive, the more you can increase your Kill Power, enhancing your skills, completing challenges to unlock various parts of the Knight’s Arsenal along the way to help give you even more of a fighting chance. Needless to say, this is a game that appears to pride itself on offering a good challenge, with different difficulty settings to tackle as well.
Review: Hades (Xbox)
Hades already looked great, but experiencing it in 4k on current-gen consoles is a sight to behold.
With its arcade-style action, eye-grabbing style and tons of enemies to blow away along with dashes of bullet hell that suggest loads upon loads of mayhem, Kill Knight stands a chance of becoming a surprise hit upon arrival, even with a crowded market of similar games, be they survivors, roguelikes or otherwise. Will it succeed? We’ll find out later this year, when Kill Knight is set to arrive on all major platforms.
