Gloomwood - new blood interactive published immersive sim

[SM47]

 

The Dusk/Amid Evil publishers are only going and publishing a bloomin late 90s looking glass style stealth/immersive sim. Early access aug 

 

Spoiler

Gloomwood is a stealth horror FPS that follows your mysterious abduction to a forgotten, twisted Victorian metropolis in the midst of a horrifying transformation. Wield your canesword and take to the shadows as you uncover the accursed mystery hidden within the fog.

The producers of DUSK, AMID EVIL, ULTRAKILL and FAITH bring you a frightening, gothic immersive sim full of haunted streets, dark tunnels and decadent mansions.

 

An intricate, hand-crafted city with freeform exploration - from towering rooftops down to hidden passages, the routes you take and paths you make, are your choice.

A detailed stealth and sound system that tracks your light visibility and propagates noise accurately through the world. Tread lightly. Or prepare to get loud.

 

A unique arsenal to meet any situation - a stealthy canesword, six-shot revolver, folding shotgun, hand-placed traps, rope-slinging harpoon rifle and more.

In-depth player interactivity, from leaning to eavesdrop, peeking through door cracks, checking the bullets in your firearms and mantling onto ledges.

 

 

This looks absolutely SENSATIONAL to me. Completely nails the low poly characteristics of Thief: TDP & Thief 2. I pure love these games and hope this is awesome 

[Mr. Gerbik]

This has been on my wishlist since time immemorial. Please be good.

[Jamie John]

Graphics are shit m8

[Jamie John]

Only playing. Looks quite fun. I never played Thief back in the day, so a run through of this at high res and 60FPS could be good.

[SM47]

Thief 1 and 2 are still incredible games and worth playing today. Buy for pennies from steam/gog, patch them up with the fan patches and come back to this thread a richer man for having played some of the best games of all time. 

[Qazimod]

There's a cute anecdote about the game where it was intended to be shown off at a PC Gamer stream in 2020 but it was forgotten in the schedule - a dev made a comment along the lines of "oh well, there's goes my chance to be seen" and someone must have caught it because the showrunners hurried out a "stick around after the show for another trailer!" comment on social media.

 

And that "one more thing" delivery meant that, well... people got hyped up. A comment from one of the devs after the trailer:

 

 

(As a fun aside, the URL http://notbloodborne.com/ was registered to point to the Gloomwood trailer.  )

[Exit Chamber]

Got high hopes for this.

[PikaStu]

The demo was extremely atmospheric,  looking forward the playing more of the game!

[Captain Kelsten]

Looks awesome! 

[moosegrinder]

https://www.eurogamer.net/gloomwood-is-stealthy-victoriana-incarnate-and-its-already-super-good

 

[SM47]

Overwhelmingly positive reviews on schteam. Content seems a bit thin on ye olde ground RN though, I'll 100% be scooping it when it's got a bit more meat on its bones. 

[b00dles]

I saw this on my queue while randomly looking through steam and immediately dismissed it as some sort of dull  looking steam punk FPS but immersive sim, like thief... ?

 

Now I'm intrigued. 

[Popo]

I’m quite interested in this after reading the New Blood studio profile in last month’s Edge. 
 

Has anyone given it a spin on Deck?

[Stevie]

I got this today and its quite lovely (10% off on steam today) It definitely nails that early 2000's feel, and it brings back fond memories of playing all sorts of games of that era. As I was playing it, I had to stop and think about the difference between this and modern titles. I kept imagining this as a modern game with nice and shiny graphics, and how dull it probably would be. The graphics in this game doesn't feel out of place at all, and I'm probably going to enjoy it immensely. Now it remains to be seen if the writing is any good. 

[Stevie]

Yes, this is quite good. Finished what has been released so far, and it took almost four hours. You wont be sorry if you get this now, but you wont be sorry either if you do as @SM47 and wait until there's more content. 

 

Alone In the Dark/10

[imp]

I picked this up yesterday and played through the first area. I've never played Thief, not being a PC gamer as a kid, but have played most of Arkane's modern immersive sims and System Shock 2 many years ago.

 

I thought it was very solid - a great opening level, full of secrets and tempting avenues to explore. The stealth felt fairly intuitive to me, and even the voice acting was shockingly good for an indie project. I'm sold, looking forward to seeing how the game develops!

[imp]

Polished off the remaining early access content and generally had a great time! I'm happy it looks like the game will likely be a mix of densely packed areas to explore and traversal through more linear spaces, it's always nice to have things varied a bit.

 

I have to say I have a couple of gripes. Firstly I think it's cool how you move faster when you holster your weapon, I like the risk/reward inherent in that choice, but I do think the movement speed is a bit too far on the slow side when you're trying to cover big distances in areas you've fully cleared out. I can see they want to limit your move speed to increase the tension of stalking an enemy, but it makes backtracking a bit of a chore.

 

Other than that, I'm not keen on save points. While I was learning the mechanics early on, it basically incentivised me to keep journeying back each time I killed a guard or two so I wouldn't lose progress or have to repeat stealth kills over and over, totally ruining the rhythm and tension of pushing into the unknown. I know it's done to disincentivise save-scumming, but I think I might have preferred that over tediously trudging back and forth. I found myself less inclined to do this as I grew more familiar with the game though, as my bag of tricks increased and I became more proficient at dealing with guards both stealthily and non-stealthily, so I'm not super worried about this in the long run.

 

Inventory management was a bit of a bummer. I was carrying a lot of stuff I couldn't figure out how to use (or maybe doesn't have a use as of yet), and by the time I finished the available content most of the limited space was taken up by weaponry.

 

One thing I really like about the game is how it doesn't incentivise non-lethal gameplay at all. Obviously I don't know if that will become a thing down the line, but I hate it when these sorts of games give you a puritanical way of playing that steers you away from just having fun. 

 

Another thing I liked about the game after it tells you you've finished all available content:

 

Spoiler

There's a little more to explore via a secret passage! I thought that was a great little bonus, tying a nice bow on the area by opening a shortcut. I really like how the shortcuts connect you back to the previous areas.

 

Has anyone who's finished this found a key to the tower atop the fishery? I think that's the only thing I haven't discovered, if it even exists yet...

 

Anyway, I guess it'll be a while off, but I'm looking forward to coming back in the next update!

[Stevie]

New added content, people

 

 

[Chthonic Boom]

Picked this up in early access and after a couple of hours playing through the first map, I'm loving it. Thief 2 was my entry point into immersive sims, and it's never been topped in my mind. A lot of games like Deus Ex took elements from it, but went for a broad range of systems rather than keeping a tight focus on stealth, so they always felt a bit watered down in comparison. This is the first game I've played since then that feels like it's really trying to play in the same space.

I understand the reason for taking away quicksave, and I'm guilty of ruining games for myself in the past by overusing it (yeah, I'm looking at you, Dishonoured), but I still didn't get on with the fixed save locations at first. I had a much better time when I started treating stealth fails as an opportunity to run around like a headless chicken, making a ruckus, scoping out the area, and going down in a blaze of glory.

 

Hands down favourite part so far was trying to open the safe:

Spoiler

There's a tradition in immersive sims going back to System Shock of using 0451 as the combination of the first first lock/safe/whatever in the game. So the first safe I find, of course, I dial in 451 and turn the handle. The safe explodes in my face, taking out most of my health and drawing 3 enemies into the room who make short work of me. Had to laugh!