Gamernode: Previews - Drakensang: The Dark Eye

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Drakensang is an upcoming party-based single-player cRPG from the German developer Radon Labs. GamerNode got the chance to take a closer look at this European product in Leipzig, Germany.

The announcement of Drakensang, set in the world and using the rules of the German "Das Schwarze Auge" pen and paper system (called The Dark Eye in English, though I'll stubbornly refer to it as DSA) led to some initial excitement amongst older RPG fans. Some of our readers might fondly remember a cRPG series published from 1993 to 1996 called "Realms of Arkania" (Blade of Destiny, Star Trail, Shadows over Riva) also based on the DSA license. Those that don't, I suggest you check the Underdogs and give the classic games a spin, incredible fun if it's to your tastes.

From the announcement onwards, this game has been marketed as "Baldur's Gate in 3D." The developers have made it clear that this game is not a sequel to the classic series, but another take at the DSA world in a cRPG setting. Fair enough, but the question becomes "how good is their take?"

The tentative answer is "not bad." The game employs the 4th edition DSA ruleset and, after decades of refining, the DSA system is widely known for being well-balanced, intuitive and expansive. The game does not fully exploit this expansiveness, cutting a few skills, but even so it retains an excellent system of combat, magic and miscellaneous skills like smithing and alchemy to exploit.

At the start of the game, you create one character, and you can pick up other people to add to your party as you go along. The gameplay is party-based with up to 4 player characters (with NPCs sometimes tagging on for a while), which means that your characters should supplement each other's skills both in and out of combat. The game is built for such a party, with a lot of support and party interaction going on, which means it'll be tough to play through without expanding your party.

Mentally assigning such roles as "tank" can be useful, but of course standard roles for warriors and mages are in too. Combat is real-time with pause, with turn-based calculations based on the DSA system running underneath.

Being heavily inspired by the things BioWare and BIS have done with the D&D license from the late 90s onwards, it's not surprising that controls and interfaces will be somewhat reminiscent of NWN 2. You can select characters and use point and click to move them around, have a lead character the rest of the party follows. WASD movement is also available. A 3rd-person freely moving camera will track your selected characters.

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