In Ashen, NPCs can be controlled by AI or human players.īut Ashen is more than a sum of its influences. In the hours I’ve spent with Ashen over the past couple of weeks, it’s revealed a medley of influences: the passive multiplayer of Journey, where human companions slip into the boots of your NPC companions as quietly as Ashen slipped onto the Epic Games Store earlier this month the satisfying weight of Dark Souls combat exploration as intoxicating as Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s, which may come as a surprise to Souls fans expecting Ashen’s world to be the next Lordran or Yarnham. In fact, slapping a “Souls-like” label on Ashen is disingenuous. More so the Souls-like that get their influences right. But there’s something special about Souls-likes, especially one crafted with as much TLC as A44’s. This year has been stacked, especially in terms of indies. Players like me, who would drop anything to immerse themselves in any Souls-like, let alone one as haunting and beautiful as Ashen, were bound to rush to their computers and queue up a download through the Epic Games Store no matter what else was going on in the gaming world.īut what about the rest of the gaming world? What about you? Have you played Ashen? If not, you’re missing out on one of 2018’s standout games. Yet the more I consider Ashen’s stealth release, the more it makes sense. Ultimate kicked and punched its way onto the Nintendo eShop. The show was a three-hour tumult of announcements and award winners, and many viewers treated the yearly event as a way to kill time until midnight EST when Super Smash Bros. Also true is that developer A44’s new action-adventure-RPG-Souls-like debuted at the tail end of the year with the deck stacked against it in some ways.Ī44’s-and presumably Microsoft’s-decision to release Ashen during The Game Awards could be perceived as a bad move. After all, it’s been in development for years, and has made several appearances at E3. Some may disagree with Ashen being classified as an overlooked game.

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