Seraph is a slick looking shooter currently being developed for the PS4 and PC by Dreadbit. The game features daemon dodging action with lightning fast dashing, explosive-evading cartwheeling, ninja style wall climbing, and the incredible ability to not aim. All the shooting here is automatic with the focus being on constantly moving to stay alive. If this sounds a little nuts, Dreadbit is used to strange games as its last title Ironcast was a gem-matching puzzle/rogue-like hybrid that was set in a steampunk dystopia.
In this aimless world you play as an the angel, Seraph. She’s trapped not only in a vulnerable human vessel, but in a massive prison filled with hungry daemons. Not much is known about the story at this point but it’s most likely going to take a back seat to the intense gameplay glorified in the trailer. Also since levels are procedurally generated it’s doubtful that a lot of narrative is going to be packed in between demon blasting goodness.
Just because Seraph blasts things without your input doesn’t mean this is going to be easy; the challenge of the game constantly scales based on your abilities and is even represented by a visible difficulty bar. This skill-based shooter also has bullet hell-lite elements and obviously relies on quick reflexes to avoid death. But you’ll be able to unlock new move and abilities from a skill tree as you raid daemon bodies for supplies. On top of all of this is the angelic ‘smite’ attack that can only be used in close proximity to enemies. This adds yet another element of strategy as you must risk your life with larger enemies refuse to go down from simple automatic gunfire.
On the crazy end of the spectrum Seraph includes not only a different prison layout on each playthrough but modifiers that can help or hinder your progress that are activated through Twitch integration. There’s a ‘stream mode’ where the audience can vote between positive and negative effects for the player in the next level. Dreadbit wants to make their game as entertaining to watch as it is to play and they’ve made sure that the camera feed for the Twitch function never blocks view of the main game.
While the pricing and release date of Seraph has not yet been decided, there will be an early access version on Steam at some point in April. Of course there’s no dollar tag attached that version either so until then you should work on your acrobatics and forget about target practice. Here’s some glorious animated gifs to tide you over while we keep this game in our scope.
