The past several days have been packed to the brim with game announcements and reveals, so Stray Blade's unveiling may have slipped past some people's radars. Showcased during the Xbox Gamescom Showcase 2021, Stray Blade is a new title from Shock Tactics developer Point Blank Games. Published by 505 Games, Stray Blade plans to offer a fantasy action RPG with focuses on complex and intense combat and an evolving world to explore. Stray Blade will launch in 2022 on PC and next-gen consoles.
As noted, Stray Blade is described as focusing around two core components of gameplay. Combat seems to be the primary component. Point Blank is building a "high noon" melee combat system highly dependent on reactions and precise movement. There's a clear Dark Souls influence visible, as combat involves a lot of circle-strafing, dodges, and quick attacks that take advantage of vulnerable moments. Stray Blade has also added a fishing move system that's familiar from Batman and God of War action games.
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The second core aspect of Stray Blade is said to be exploration of its large world. Point Blank describes diverse environments including overgrown city ruins, frozen caves, and winding canyons. Exploring will lead to a variety of discovered rewards, including materials, recipes, gear, lore items, and beautiful locations. However, the most interesting aspect of Stray Blade's world is described as an ever-changing environment. Rather than time resetting like in Souls games, Stray Blade has time "move forward," so areas where enemies have been defeated will change and become repopulated with new, more challenging encounters.
There's obviously much more to Stray Blade than just combat and exploration, of course. Stray Blade features a robust crafting system based around collecting materials from enemies and hidden locations. It also supports a thorough gear system with item drops and item rarity. And while Stray Blade's progression systems haven't been detailed yet, one screenshot appears to show that there is leveling.
Stray Blade does not try to hide that it's a Souls-like game, but it also clearly isn't trying to ape Dark Souls' entire gimmick. It has a more vivid and colorful world, akin to Kingdoms of Amalur or MMOs. It has more humor, with its unique wolf-kin sidekick. And it steps forward from Dark Souls' gameplay in some exciting ways, like how time moves forward to create new encounters in familiar areas.
Suffice to say, Point Blank's new game is going to be worth watching for gamers who like Dark Souls games but want the subgenre to be iterated on, too. Expect to hear a lot more about Stray Blade in the months to come.
Stray Blade releases in 2022 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
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