On the way, she encounters a young orphaned girl named Lily. Shadwen, which was announced early last month, stars the eponymous assassin heroine as she sets out to kill the king. On PC, the game will be available via Steam, Humble Store, GOG.com, Origin, the Mac App Store and the GeForce NOW Store (they really cover all their bases, don’t they?). Shadwen‘s promising journey begins by placing players in the shoes of Lily, a starving orphan child who is looking to sneak past guards in order to get an apple.07 May, 2016 Finnish developers Frozenbyte have announced that their upcoming stealth action game Shadwen will be releasing later this month on PC and PlayStation 4.įrozenbyte have announced on their blog that Shadwen will be launching on May 17th, and that the launch platforms will be Windows, OS X, Linux and PS4. While Lily may not be a veteran thief, she does have one thing on her side: time. What makes Shadwen unique is that players are allowed to plan every move as action is paused when you’re not moving (although the player can press R1 to make time pass while standing still). Going a step further, Frozenbyte has also given players the ability to rewind time, which eliminates a lot of the trial and error frustration that has plagued stealth games in the past. It’s a great concept, and one that’s immediately appealing. After a brief introductory stage that’s all about non-violently sneaking around, which is done by distracting guards by pushing objects around, players are introduced to Shadwen, who is the game’s primary protagonist. Unlike Lily, the titular assassin doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty, and controlling Shadwen, whose goal is to kill the King, opens up a lot of different mechanics. Shadwen, who is armed with a knife and a grappling hook, is very mobile. She can quickly climb to the top of any wooden structure and only needs to get behind guards in order to permanently end their night. It’s incredibly freeing to be able to swing from balconies and jump across rooftops unnoticed. Which is why it’s frustrating that the grappling mechanic is typically more awkward to use than fun. Just like the Trine series, a lot of Shadwen deals with manipulating the game’s physics. That’s awesome in theory, but everything from wooden crates to dead bodies have the habit of freaking out from time to time. This also happens a lot when trying to use the game’s grappling hook, which only worked as intended about 50% of the time. When trying to get on top of a ledge Shadwen has the habit of not grabbing onto it, and instead forcing the player to awkwardly jump up and around to get on top of it. If there’s one nice thing about the game’s rewind mechanic, and this is something players will use frequently as being spotted is an immediate failure, it’s that players are almost instantly given a second chance. ![]() Did a dead body just freak out on a ledge and fall right on top of a guard below thus alerting him? Just rewind and try to drag the lifeless corpse again. This lessens the overall frustration, but the game’s rough gameplay doesn’t eliminate the trial-and-error like it’s supposed to. While the physics-based jank is almost to be expected from such a game, and sometimes the bugs are weirdly charming, the biggest issue in Shadwen is the level design. Every single stage is essentially the same: eliminate area after area of guards so Lily can sneak past them unharmed. While obviously the game is going to revolve around taking out enemies (or just distracting them if you choose to go a non-violent route), the guards’ arrangement is far too similar level to level. ![]() The main challenge from the very beginning to end is basically getting two guards who are talking with each other separated and killing each one individually. That’s about as far as the stage layouts go.
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