The developer of the acclaimed side-scroller Trine has announced a new third-person stealth action game Shadwen, which focuses almost entirely of hiding in the shadows, evasion and stealth attacks.
The game also forces the player to consider their action as the shadowy assassin Shadwen, who encounters a little orphan named Lily on her way to assassinate the King. She takes the little girl under her wing, but must make the moral choice of whether to kill in front of the young eyes, or find other ways to her goals. Players can choose a lethal and non-lethal style, but the developer exhorts, ”Become a true god of stealth and protect Lily’s innocence - complete the game with no bodies left behind.”
Some of the more unusual gameplay mechanics is that time will stand still when Shadwen is not being controlled, allowing the player to stop the game at any point, even while in mid-jump. Players can also rewind time a la Prince of Persia to have more precise actions. The game is physics-based, so players can use a freely attachable rope to drag and topple objects, either to make guard kills look like an accident, or distract them with some well placed movement and noise. . Make deaths look accidental; let gravity do the grave work. Players can also set traps, lethal and humane, including such devices as poison traps, spike devices, and smoke bombs.
A demo based on the alpha build is available to Humble Store Monthly subscribers, which can be downloaded here. Shadwen is expected to be released sometime in 2016. Gamers interested in the game can visit the official site here.
