Gamecraft has emerged at the start of the month to announce their new stealth survival game, Ecumene Aztec.
In a press release, Gamecraft shared this description of Ecumene Aztec:
“Ecumene Aztec is an action RPG featuring a dynamic class-based combat system. Choose from three warrior classes between the Jaguar, Eagle, and Snake, and master your abilities in order to defend against the intruders. When human strength isn’t enough, make a blood sacrifice and utilize gifts from the gods to gain an otherworldly advantage. The evil of man is no match for the power of a god.
With an emphasis on exploration, you must familiarize yourself with your surroundings both within the confines of the city and beyond in order to survive. Reach new heights and survey the city through a responsive climbing system. When all hope seems lost within the city, retreating into the lush jungles remains a valiant tactic. Prowl through the dense foliage and strike from the shadows with in-depth stealth action combat. One wrong move, and the conquistadors will not hesitate to slash through the greenery. Even with your throat at the tip of a blade, the jungle’s natural inhabitants may step in to protect their own.”
As for the game’s name, the Merriam Webster dictionary defines ecumene as:
“the permanently inhabited portion of the earth, as distinguished from the uninhabited or temporarily inhabited area”
So the name Ecumene Aztec refers to the part of MesoAmerica where the Aztecs live, in this case, the city state of Tenochtitlan.
The official trailer shows that your Aztec warrior can set traps and use stealth. He can also attack using a macuahuitl, a weapon made of a wooden club lined across the sides with sharp obsidian blades.
Now, I don’t want to be the killjoy, but when I point out that Ecumene Aztec doesn’t look historically accurate, that isn’t meant to be an indictment. Even the very deeply researched Assassin’s Creed games have to make ahistorical adjustments to make their games playable, and for that matter, to give their Assassins hoods.
In this case, Aztecs may have known different forms of warfare before they were colonized, but climbing up and down their temple walls like SAS agents were definitely not one of those skills. They built those long staircases for a reason.
There’s also a strange lack of guns in the trailer, though that may simply not be part of the vertical slice. In any case, it won’t be entirely fair to critique these little things until we get to see more of the game as it goes through development. Hopefully Gamecraft plans for public betas, or maybe even Early Access, so that the public can help them make this the best game it can be.
Ecumene Aztec will be released in 2024. You can wishlist the game on Steam here, and watch the official trailer below.
