Skip to main content

Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Absolver 15-minute dev walkthrough looks like For Honor meets God Hand

Martial arts MMO merges fighting games with open-ended adventure.

Ambitious competitive fighting MMO Absolver has unveiled 15 minutes of gameplay narrated by creative director Pierre Tarno.

As revealed by IGN, this introduction to Absolver shows us how the game's complex melee combat system works. You've got the usual punches, kicks, blocks, dodges and parries, but Absolver goes all God Hand on us by unleashing a comprehensive library of fighting moves that we're invited to construct our own combo sequences out of.

Watch on YouTube

There are four stances you can use in Absolver, each one initiating a sequence of different customisable attacks, a bit like God Hand's rewritable main attack chain. Only here, you can switch between the four stances on the fly using the right analogue stick (ala For Honor), effectively switching between different combo chains you've written.

One neat aspect of Absolver's combat is that you can feint a move, effectively psyching out your opponent by telegraphing a fake attack.

Intriguingly, the way you learn new moves in Absolver is by using a special absorb ability to block unknown attacks from foes. Do this enough and you'll gain access to that attack, sort of like how one gains witty retorts in Monkey Island's insult swordfighting.

While Absolver is set in a cohesive interconnected world, there will also be standalone PvP arenas where you can fight 1v1 or have 3v3 matches.

Absolver is coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC later this year with Devolver Digital publishing.