It’s good that, at least seemingly from this new trailer, the production of Zeno Clash 2 hasn’t provoked any necessity to sand down developer Ace Team’s patented outlandishness. The chilean developer’s first game is a mess in the best possible way. It’s like taking ketamine and looking at a photo of your dad coloured in with a child’s fingerpaints, but that’s entirely the selling point. It’s a little janky in some spots but excels on charm and oddity.
The trailer, released today, displays the game’s clearest design pillars. It’s a visual delight, focusing on vibrancy and a variety in the colour palette. It’s a game that pretty clearly doesn’t want to approach a similarity in art style to anything but the previous release.
The unique approach to combat will hopefully be integrated well. There’s a lot of complex things at play here. It’s showing that you’ll have moves to simply punching with both hands, but also grapples that become suplexes, plus you’ll be able to attack enemies that are sneaking up on you from behind. That’s a whole lot of possibility on display, but that’s the possibility of being effectively implemented or being unwieldy.
Lastly, gosh, it’s a bit weird isn’t it? It’s really really weird. They set out to make something weird and didn’t say no to a single idea. That's great.
Zeno Clash 2 will be out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC later in the year. There’s no possible way you can hope to prepare for it in time.
