French development house Streum On Studio just announced their newest title: Daimon Blades. It’s a first-person slasher set inside an ancient temple filled to the brim with unique environments and hordes of monster to slay, along with online co-op for up to four players. The developers, however, also want to make the game enjoyable for lone wolfs. More importantly - at least to us - it marks the return to a universe we have not visited since 2011 when the studio released their debut title: E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. In a twist, though, Daimon Blades is a Dark Fantasy Genesis story and a slight reboot of the franchise; taking place long before the events of Divine Cybermancy, during the first crusades in a world corrupted by magic.
On the hunt for your mentor
In Daimon Blades you are part of the shadowy cult Secreta. These warrior monks have taken it upon themselves to fight against the Daimons (demons with a different origin story), a task they have already been doing for centuries. At the start of the game you choose one of three factions: Culter Dei, Jian Shang Di, and – newly created for Daimon Blades – the Saif Al-Haq. These factions are inspired by Medieval Knights, Samurai culture, and Arabian Warriors, respectively. Your choice of faction, however, is purely cosmetic in nature and has no actual consequences for the gameplay. Your character is solely defined by their equipment and abilities.
Once you setup your in-game persona, you are tasked with entering a temple that has recently been uncovered and searching for your old mentor. He led the first expedition into this forgotten temple and has now gone missing. This isn't a search-and-rescue mission, though; you must hunt him down, kill him, and collect the secrets of Daimon Forging, the art of infusing your weapons with Daimonic energy. To make things even more complicated, the temple is a gateway to an infinite number of places.
Going on an adventure
In order to hunt down your old mentor, you will have to go on expeditions from the main social hub at the base of the temple. Each expedition is a set of procedurally generated levels and at the start of each level, you and your friends vote on which place to visit next. Depending on the choice on your so-called "Path of Destiny," the setting, difficulty, and rewards will change. Currently, the game features nine different biomes that are a mixture of dark and uninviting, but also strangely colorful locations – especially the jungle-like biomes filled with glowing plant life. While there are some slighty unsettling elements to the enviroment, the Daimons are explicitly there to make you uncomfortable, as Art Director Aurélien Hubert explains. “Not through gore or shock, but with subtle, unsettling details. Some enemies always keep a hand on their shoulder. Some have an arm running between their legs. We also deliberately removed the eyes from many enemies, as a response to the idea that ‘the eyes are the mirror of the soul”.
Live, die, repeat
A standard expedition should take you around 20-40 minutes on the easiest difficulty level. On your way to the boss, you will fight hordes of enemies (including mini-bosses) while fulfilling simple objectives. The combat is fast-paced, intimate, and deadly as you parry and block projectiles and melee attacks. The fights should almost feel like duels, according to the developers, while still keeping the overall speed of progression and the action up. It’s similar to DOOM (2016)’s push-forward combat in that regard. Being more efficient at the combat and eradicating a group of enemies fast enough will spawn in additional foes, which may not seem like a reward but it does increase the experience and loot you'll gain. There are currently 21 different archetypes of enemies, each with their own behavior and abilities. In addition, four bosses will stand between you and your loot and these are heavily inspired by MMOs with different phases which you will need to analyze and find the solution for before you can be victorious and claim your prize. While the main attraction is of course the loot, beating a boss also unlocks a new chapter in the main story path of the game as well as additional lore about the temple.
Once you've finished the story or if you feel like taking a break from it, there are other game modes available, too. The exploration mode, for example, challenges you to push deeper and deeper into the Daimon realm with the only limit being a set number of deaths. In all modes you can get back up during an expedition upon death thanks to the power of your Daimon-infused weaponry, but your corruption meter also fills up with every life you or your allies loose. Once the meter is full the expedition ends and most of the stuff you have collected so far is gone forever. You will have to decide on when to stop and go back to the hub to save your rewards, but there's always the temptation of bigger rewards taunting you to continue.
Unlimited Builds
The developers describe Daimon Blades as a first-person slasher with the depth of an ARPG (i.e., lots of progression) and the replayable nature of a modern rogue-lite. The replayability comes from the expeditions, so let's talk progression. There are both character and gear advancements; you have stats you can put points into to make you stronger along with active and passive abilities – dubbed "Alchemy powers." By collecting resources during your run, you can go back to the hub and forge new armors and weapons. According to Streum On Studios, each weapon is truly unique as there are endless combinations on abilities, powers, and stats it can have or give you. You can also craft different skins to create a unique look for yourself. In addition your weapon levels up as you use them unlocking new bonuses and abilities you can mix and match.
The goal is to allow you to customize your play style as much as you want and the developers don’t intend to limit you in any way. No checks if your build is totally over- or underpowered or even makes any sense. You won't have access to all of these systems right away, so as not to overwhelm you. As you play through the game new functions and features will naturally unlock and become available; a non-intrusive tutorial, if you will.
Lone Wolfs welcome
Up to four players can band together and try to tackle an expedition with the possibility to join in-progress expedition at any time if there’s an open slot. The difficulty level adjusts based on the number of players, which also ties into the desire to make the game solo-friendly. While other titles like Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide allow for bots on your side and advertise themselves as "soloable" this way, the reality is that, in most cases, it’s not really fun to go at it alone. Stream On Studios forgoes the idea of bots and instead tries to balance the difficulty level in such a way, that you have can also have fun on your own or with friends.
To that regard, there are also no abilities or powers that are explicitly designed for co-op play or require it; this would after all invalidate the developer’s vision of giving you total build freedom. Instead, the focus is again on finding your own way and discover natural synergies. One alchemy power, for example, allows you to pull enemies together, which can act as a perfect setup for yourself or a teammate to cast a fireball into their midst for maximum damage.
Conclusion
To be perfectly honest, there are a ton of four-player-horde-shooters currently out there fighting for our attention and it would be easy to view Daimon Blades as another entry in an already oversaturated market. Based on what we have seen so far, though, the developers are trying something unique with the formula and there is promise with the shift from shooting to melee-focused combat pared with a ton of build choices and the level-up-mechanics of your weapon. It's also good that you can make progress on your own when your friends are not available. Hopefully it will all translates to a fun game. Luckily, with the impending Steam Early Access start, we don’t have to wait too long to dive back into the E.Y.E-universe and see for ourselves.
Daimon Blades is set to enter Steam Early Access on the 3rd of September.