E3 2014: Hands-On with Nosgoth’s warring factions [Preview]

As I walked into the private meeting room for Square-Enix, Nosgoth stared at me. I thought I would be able to see what the game was all about, talk to someone from the development team and get a more one-on-one discussion about it. Instead I was told to find a PC to sit down and start playing.

It’s said that the best way to experience a game is to play it, and that’s just what the developers had in mind.

There were ten PCs total set up for a local LAN game for anyone that came to see the game. We played a fairly classic death match mode. It was simple to get into and understand the game because of that, and I liked it. As least they know who their target audience is going to be when they release the game.

The lore of the game is pretty simple: you are either the Vampires or the Humans, pitted against each other. Each faction has 4 classes to choose from.

For the Vampires:

• Reaver
• Tyrant
• Sentinel
• Deceiver

For the Humans:

• Scout
• Alchemist
• Hunter
• Prophet

The controls were also really simple and fairly basic for those of us who are comfortable with standard PC controls. The Left and Right mouse buttons attack, the Q and F buttons allow use of your special abilities, and of course WASD moves your character around the map.

Even though the demo did not have a single player mode, and was set up with asymmetric multiplayer, I found myself getting (happily) lost in what was going on and really getting into the game. Wonder how Nosgoth handles asymmetric play? From the mouths of the devs:

Nosgoth consists of two rounds where players alternate between playing as Humans and as Vampires. Nosgoth’s Humans are skilled hunters with an arsenal of devastating ranged weaponry and lethal devices at their disposal, whereas the vampires in Nosgoth are themselves weapons, specialising in melee combat with their inhuman powers and abilities.

Taking turns at both sides really pushes strategy planning, and affected how I prepared and played immensely. Overall I enjoyed playing as the vampires more than I did as the Humans, mainly because I could swoop down and kill a human, especially if we stick together as a group. Working closely with your team becomes really important and probably advised, because being found on your own will probably result in being killed in a matter of seconds by another group. I found myself in that situation a few times and soon converted to myself following the pack.

It is a fun experience, but if you are on the winning team often you could get bored really quickly because of the uneven dynamics. The balance between teams and factions needs to be adjusted to make this a game to stick with for more than a few rounds at a time.

Currently Nosgoth is in alpha and keys are available publicly. It’s planned as a Free to Play game and is only available for the PC. Square-Enix is promoting that Nosgoth is NOT and never will be “Pay to Win”, and so players should be able to jump in and not feel like they’re behind the skill levels of others too quickly.