Medieval Roguelike Bow-shooter ‘IN DEATH’ Hits Early Access, PSVR Version in the Works

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Sólfar Studios’ new title IN DEATH, launches today in Early Access with a launch week discount. The “roguelike” bow-shooter makes use of procedural generation to create different experience every time you play, the developers say, while players come upon “monsters, mysteries and loot.”

In Death launches today in Early Access (at 10AM PT) on the Oculus store, as well as Steam where it supports the Vive, Rift, and Windows VR headsets. The $20 title will see a 10% launch discount for the first week. Developer Sólfar Studios—the team behind EVEREST VR (2016)—explains the gameplay:

Inspired by classic Roguelike dungeon crawlers, In Death pays homage to this merciless genre favoured by core gamers. With no save points, each procedurally generated run uses a random seed to generate the map with randomized enemy and loot spawn points. Game progression is driven by an achievement system that persists across each run and scales the difficulty level of the game in lockstep with your mastery of it.

And further promises:

  • Ranged combat, perfected
  • Unique locomotion system
  • Global, cross platform leaderboards and personal stats
  • Beautiful medieval setting
  • Convenience settings for your playstyle

As an Early Access title, the studio says they are planning regular updates centered around feedback from players. While there’s no hard launch date set, the studio says they anticipate the game’s full launch to come in 2018.

“We have reached that moment in our development where we are confident that the core loop is solid, replayability is high and visual polish and performance is good,” the studio writes on their Steam page. “We are still very much in Beta and iterating on ideas and player feedback. We do have frequent patches planned so that players can expect the game to continue evolving throughout the Early Access period.”

Sólfar also announced that PSVR version of In Death is in the works, though no specific timing for its launch is mentioned.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Andrew McEvoy

    Unique locomotion? Uh oh..

    Just normal regular full locomotion please!

    • Les Vega

      It has full locomotion though the teleport arrows and throwing daggers are arguably the best way to play since they are skill based tried to throw one behind a single archer as I was sneaking for the point blank headshot….sadly I missed and my dagger tumbled over the wall and into a Cort yard full of angry knights witch I survived…barely but the fight was insane.

      • Andrew McEvoy

        Ah ok, that does sound good. As long as there ‘s the option though then everyone’s happy.

        • Sheri

          Goℴgle paying the people 98 US dollars/hr to complete easy work on a home computer .. Labor Some just few hours and have greater time together with your family … Any person can get this super post…on Sunday I bought a new Lotus Esprit just after earning $21683 this last five weeks .it is the best work but you could not forgive yourself if you don’t have a peek at this.!xh571c:⇆⇆⇆ http://GoogleDailyConsumerManiaJobsFromHomeJobs/computer/jobs ♥♥♥w♥j♥♥q♥i♥♥a♥c♥♥z♥♥♥c♥f♥♥♥n♥♥♥z♥♥b♥♥n♥o♥♥♥z♥u♥♥n♥v♥♥w♥♥♥w♥♥v♥♥q♥♥q♥♥♥m♥c:::::!fg941a:

        • Gonzalo Novoa

          yeah, you have the option for full locomotion, it’s the only way I would ever think of playing it, to be honest. It works very well, movement is a bit slow for my taste but I think the developers are aware and intend to change it.
          I highly recommend the game, it is a lot of fun and the bow/arrow mechanics work wonderfully well, you feel like a real archer.

  • John Horn

    Little nitpicking here.. this isn’t medieval, but fantasy. :)
    Medieval being a specific historical era.

  • Peter Hansen

    Just another fighting game with trash graphics, animations, and mechanics. Sorry, but I have seen enough of those.

    Every dev creating one of those thinks it will definitely sell like crazy. And I don’t want to diminish the accomplishment here. If I could create something like this, I would be more than proud. But 10 s of YouTube show you that this is nothing special and won’t leave a mark on modern VR’s scoreboard. I am so tired of the VR gaming situation on PC.

    • Jean-Sebastien Perron

      Turn to simulators, this is what VR was made for and in the racing and flying department they rule over the gaming world.

      • Peter Hansen

        Hm, I am not sure I perfectly agree. The human visual system is able to perceive pronounced stereo depth effects only in a range of ~8 m max. With most racing and flying simulators this means that the only strong stereo effects I will have are for the cockpit (and my experience with games like Elite Dangerous support this claim). That is not really enough for me to justify purchasing a VR setup. Which I have already done, of course. But still, I want more bang for my bucks.

        • Jens Hansen

          Depth of field isn’t _the_ feature of VR, though. I saw a Carmack talk once where he explained how people often were not even able to tell if a title was rendering stereoscopic or not.

          The immersion factor of something like Elite Dangerous in VR, as opposed to on a monitor, is IMO mind boggling. The sense of scale is awesome. Yours is the first comment I’ve seen that hasn’t been equally impressed.

          Personally I never got people who thought 3D movies were great based on 2-3 scenes of something included only to “pop out” and differentiate the movies from their 2D versions. I certainly wouldn’t want my VR experience to be all about things up in my face. But, hey, different strokes for different blokes.

    • sebrk

      Are you on a Vive or a Rift? All Rift exclusives have been mindblowing.

    • Gonzalo Novoa

      Perhaps you should try it, it might surprise you. I didn’t expect much from it and right now it might as well be one of my favorite VR games.

  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    Just another wave shooter.

    • Les Vega

      no.. not at all, playing this like a wave shooter would be as dumb as playing darksouls like dynasty warriors

      • Jean-Sebastien Perron

        I bought it and it is not a wave shooter like I thought. It is a brilliant unique game. Fun and scary at the same time.

        • Les Vega

          yeah this trailer screams wave shooter so much it probably drove more people away than anything else, bad marketing again hiding a good game.