A few amazing games have moved the needle in the last few years on the touch and feel of combat. That’s what Tuque hope Dark Alliance does with what we call Emergent Combat. A combat system that is easy to pick up, hard to master.
Let’s break down the game design behind the combat in our game (with some brand-new gameplay screenshots).
Simple Input
The first thing the developers knew they wanted, was to democratize the combat – make it accessible. Everyone needs to feel cool, taking on the mantle of their favorite hero, hewing their way through hordes of goblins and gnolls. Players start with a simple choice of attack inputs: light attack or fierce attack?
Complex Output
Another was to provide depth to players who invest time to really master combat – to embody the persona of that hero. The team at Tuque wanted to capture the player’s imagination in that moment they realise that they have control of what’s happening. Press forward and light attack to execute a special move. Press X after a successful hit to force a critical. And so on.
Intuitive Experience
The developers behind the game wanted to use the experience itself to help players learn those combos intuitively through the emergent combat system. The aim, to avoid players feeling the need pause combat to search through the UI for their combo button inputs. Plus, this is a co-op experience – nobody’s waiting on a friend to figure that out.
Players get to shine by seeing outcomes of their input combos that always make them feel like they did something cool while also rewarding players who figure out how to execute specific moves when and where they want.
Emergent Combat
That’s emergent combat. Each hero starts off with a limited move set that grows as they level up their character. And through that experience, using different light or fierce attacks with different toggles and button presses, will open up different branches to different attack sequences. There are hundreds of branching outcomes to be explored. The only thing that limits your hero is the stamina cost of their move.
Stamina
Heroes must manage their stamina. Deplete your stamina and experience a short period of exhaustion before it regenerates. Executing attacks reduces stamina and some of the most powerful attacks will temporarily reduce your maximum stamina. Heroes regain stamina (and maximum stamina) over time, but it can also be replenished by executing parries, or, if you’re in a hurry, a stamina potion will do. Managing stamina is partly where the challenge of combat comes from. It puts players into an “economy mindset,” where they strategically consider the costs of combat.
Challenge Yourself
The games approach is player-centric – like the benevolent dungeon master who enjoys seeing their players succeed, but who also wants to ensure the challenge keeps things interesting. And once you’ve nailed the emergent combat system, take it up a notch. Dark Alliance has six challenge ratings (our version of skill levels) to provide core players ample room to test their talent against our long list of monsters.
Combat Language
We believe that good combat is made up of a language of clear cues, incentives, and rules. Complexity out of simplicity. Tuque provide the tools. It’s up to the players to explore the system and see how deep it goes. The combat in Dark Alliance is a spectacle. Become fluent in the games combat language and you get to be the director of that spectacle.
We can’t wait for you to get our hands on the emergent combat system and i’m sure fans of D&D can’t too, let us know what you think, when Dark Alliance releases on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S on June 22.