With the lead designer of Oblivion and Morrowind, Ken Rolston, heading up work on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, it'd be easy to peg the game as an Elder Scrolls imitator. Open-world RPG? Check. Fantasy world with thousands of years of history chock full of racial and political tensions? Check.
As the game's new trailer shows, though, Amalur isn't scared to bring its own big ideas to the table, especially when it comes to combat. Rather than take the traditional plodding approach to real-time combat, Big Huge Games' effort aims to bring something with a more hack-and-slash action vibe to the table, allowing you to build rapid-fire combos with the proper combination of spells and weaponry.
In addition, you'll collect fate energy during each battle by felling foes, with more diverse tactics increasing your yeild. Earn enough, and you'll be able to enter Reckoning mode, which grants you new abilities and boosts the experience you get from each kill.
Everything on display here, from the various weapons and spells to the Reckoning mode, is fast-paced and streamlined, offering plenty of diverse combat options for every possible character build. Sure, you won't have the style of fighting you might expect from someone outfitted in heavy steel armor, but the shift away from run of the mill psuedo-realism looks to be a refreshing one.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning comes to the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC on February 7 in North America and February 10 in Europe.
