'If you're skilful enough, you can chop the head off a monster, kick it midair, and then kill another monster with it': Consider me sold on this indie first-person ARPG
tags:Heathen - Official Gameplay Overview Trailer - YouTube
Certain ideas that crop up every so often in games will always grab my attention. One of them is letting players defeat enemies with bits of other enemies. As such, my interest in Heathen—an upcoming indie dungeon crawler—went from 'mildly curious' to 'smashing the wishlist button' when its most recent trailer revealed you can beat your foes by volleying other enemy heads at them.
Developed by solo developer Christoper Yabsley, Heathen takes the frantic monster bashing and loot hoarding of Diablo and reworks it for a first-person perspective. Set in the fantasy town of Saltgrave, it sees your character seeking fortune and glory in the vast subterranean labyrinth beneath the town, encountering an "ancient horror" in the process in what the Steam page describes as a "descent into madness."
The chief addition that the trailer explores is a new enemy dismemberment system added by Yabsley, which he says has "done a lot for making swords and axes feel really good". As a longtime fan of first-person melee games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (the latter of which is an influence on Heathen's combat), I'm highly impressed by how slick and tactile Heathen's combat looks. It isn't easy to make first-person swordplay satisfying—especially as a solo indie dev—and Heathen's fast-paced hacking and slashing makes an excellent initial impression.
Yabsley says that dismemberment will have greater implications for combat than simply making it grislier. As players delve deeper into the dungeon, they will encounter stranger, more horrific enemies, and lopping off appendages will play a key role in defeating them: "Imagine fighting some many-limbed creature, and you have to chop it all apart just to keep it from killing you," Yabsley explains in the trailer.
The part of the video that really caught my attention came slightly after this, when Yabsley decapitates an undead archer. "You can actually kick the heads as well," he comments. "And if you're skilful enough, you can chop the head of a monster, kick it midair, and then kill another monster with it."
That's the kind of ridiculous reactivity I love to see in a combat system. It's worth noting that all the ARPG elements of this look extremely sleek too. The way loot vomits outs of treasure chests. The conjured portals that transport you back to town. Even the UI elements are distinctly Diablo-ish, though these could just be placeholder elements.
Interestingly, Diablo isn't the only inspiration behind Heathen. In a previous video, Yabsley cited his childhood experiences playing Diablo with his mother as a key influence. "She played it just to connect with me," Yabsley explained. "And it's a memory I'll always cherish." Unsurprisingly, then Heathen will support online co-op when it eventually launches into early access. There's no word on a release date yet, but I can't wait to try Heathen for myself.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.