It’s not often that one of my favorite works of Russian literature and videogames collide in one entity; that’s why I’ve been looking forward to Akella’s upcoming hack-n-slash RPG, Hard to be a God. Based on the novel of the same name written by the Strugatsky brothers, the game tells the story of two planets: Earth and Arkanar. Both planets were buddy-buddy, but after a long war Earth continued to grow and Arkanar stayed relatively stagnant in terms of cultural and scientific evolution.
Skip forward a few hundred years. Earth is curious as to the fate of some former patriots, so they send a secret agent to Arkanar to investigate. Using sci-fi weaponry as well as what you can find on medieval Arknar, it’s up to you to figure out why the planet hasn’t progressed, and what happened to your former allies.
I’m not really sure yet if the game will involve the book’s protagonist don Rumata or not; we’ll have to wait and see.
There’s still no set US date for release, but yesterday Ascaron announced a UK release of April 2008. With the demo already available, and preview versions already sent out (look for some impressions later this week), chances are there won’t be a delay.
In the meantime, you can check out the trailer here.
