Best known for their work on the Torchlight series, Runic Games has since been quietly working on an open world adventure called Hob, a narrative game without words.
Hob is set within a stunning yet brutal planet that players can transform and repair by solving puzzles. There are strange creatures – both friend and foe – which populate forsaken ruins, and the main character, sporting a red cloak reminiscent of Journey, hops across the lush grass with its mechanical glove arm, which will be used for both combat and traversal.
In a recent video walkthrough of Hob’s newest playable area, the ‘Forest’, Marsh Lefler and Patrick Blank of Runic Games flesh out the game’s environment, highlight the importance of foreshadowing, and open up about their inspirations for Hob:
“Some of the things that we really wanted to capture from a few different games like Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, was being very alone, and being in a world you don’t understand. It’s very different, and playing the game teaches you about it. That’s why we have no dialogue. We don’t have any NPC’s, or any real directions. You are basically going to go out and explore this world.”
Hob is expected to release in 2017 for PC and PlayStation 4.
