Counterplay Games is poised to stake a claim in the looter genre. In a time where franchises like Diablo and Destiny are alive and well, it’s coming forward with its own major loot-driven action game: the gleaming and fantastical, Godfall. If the melee combat and the elaborate setting is anything to go off of, Godfall has a good chance to set itself apart from other games like it. The way it handles loot will play an important part in deciding how the game is received and remembered. The more rewarding and satisfying it is to find weapons and equipment, the better — a universal rule for the looter genre.
It’s easy to get that wrong in looters. By their nature, the best loot takes time to find, but there needs to be a balance between the work and challenge of the search and the eventual reward. If the balance isn’t right, a looter can quickly be labeled as a tedious grindfest. In order to get it right, however, Counterplay and Godfall don’t need to look far for inspiration. The game is being published by Gearbox, the company behind Borderlands, one of the titans of the loot genre. If players can farm bosses for loot in Godfall the way they can in Borderlands, it’ll be a major boon to the player experience.
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Farming bosses really is pretty straightforward in Borderlands. No boss is killed forever if a player knows what to do, and oftentimes it’s just a matter of exiting and re-entering the area. Once a player spawns back in, the boss will reappear and the player gets another shot at finding that treasured gun. Borderlands has facilitated this farming style for years and has even made it more convenient now and again. Some of the best targets will have spawn points and fast-travel locations right next to them, letting the player spawn right on top of their target and waste no time looking for the fight.
Of course, the model isn’t perfect. If a player is unlucky, they might be stuck farming the same boss for a really long time, which is always frustrating. However, Borderlands still goes a long way in making farming less frustrating by cutting out travel time and letting players avoid obstacles that might hamstring them when getting to the boss they’re farming. No-nonsense farming with minimal distractions makes sure that players always feel like they’re making progress, even if that legendary piece of equipment is being particularly elusive.
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At the time of this writing, Godfall is still a couple months off, so it’s understandable that details about the game are still rolling out. However, the developers have promised that there will be “head-turning” loot to find in Godfall, dropped by all levels of enemies throughout the game, including bosses. That seems to suggest that players will have some way of revisiting bosses to get their treasure. That’s not surprising — if anything it’s the industry standard for looters — but it does mean Counterplay has hopefully found a way to streamline looting like Gearbox did.
For all fans know, Godfall will have a trick up its sleeve to make looting even more efficient. However, until something like that is explicitly revealed, it can’t be counted on. Godfall has a lot of potential, but as the pioneer of the next generation of looters, it also has a lot to prove. Its developers would be wise to take some inspiration from the best parts of highly successful looters and make Godfall all the better for it. This game’s third-person melee combat will hopefully facilitate some intense and epic boss battles, but it’s just as important that the game really rewards the player for engaging with every foe they come across.
Godfall releases holiday 2020 for PC and PS5.
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