Elden: Path of the Forgotten bills itself as a Lovecraftian ode, and while he's the last person that needs another videogame ode, the trailer has piqued my interest. It's a medieval cosmic horror RPG that's light on exposition and heavy on handsome pixel art.
As the titular Elden, you'll traipse around what looks like a very striking fantasy world, unfortunately full of monsters inspired by Lovecraft's nightmares. It's not giving much of the story away, which will be told indirectly, "like reading a book in a language you don't understand".
"When the world forgets, the past is primed to repeat," the Steam page warns. "As Elden struggles entering adulthood, the world is becoming a darker place. Forgotten evils are returning and only you are positioned to act."
You won't be without some tricks of your own, and you'll be able to teach Cthulhu's mate's a lesson with a variety of spells and weapons, a few of which are briefly teased in the trailer.
Shaun took it for a spin at PAX Australia back in 2016 and liked what he played.
"This is a gruesome top-down pixel RPG which deliberately evokes the mystery of the Dark Souls series," he wrote. "It’s difficult to convey that loneliness on a show floor, but even without a headset I could tell Elden has potential. The skewed art style recalls something you might have booted from a mysterious floppy disc on your Commodore 64 in the late 1980s, and while One Rat Games’ methods of evoking unease is indebted to Souls (vague dialogue, gruesome environmental storytelling), I feel like this is darker and more unsettling than the likes of Salt & Sanctuary, or Titan Souls."
Elden's been in development since 2015, but it's finally coming out this year.
