Necromancers have been a part of our gaming heritage for some time. I remember casting poison nova in Diablo 2. I remember rolling Necropolis in Heroes of Might and Magic. The only thing was that there was always this slight disconnect… I wanted to control my minions. I wanted to be the boss. Thankfully, Nekro by darkForge Games looks like its set to fill the void that these experiences left behind on my younger self.
Nekro is a very interesting mix of genres. I suppose that the easiest way to describe it would be to say that it is similar to the classic Overlord series in the sense that you control a central character along with a cast of servant minions. That’s where the comparisons end however, as Nekro takes the player down a very different path; a much darker path. As you rise out of a pool of blood and onto the battlefield, you quickly realize that things are going to get messy. And no, I’m not talking about the piggies shitting all over each other.
In Nekro, pretty much everything is covered in blood. The landscapes are literally smeared with the remnants of who-knows-what, and I think I know why. Nothing simply ‘dies’ in this game. If you punch a pig, it doesn’t just collapse to the ground. No sir, that wasn’t enough for darkForge Games. When you punch a pig, that mofo explodes. Pig pieces fly all over the place, providing your minions and nearby vultures with enough bacon to last a lifetime. The plasma-explosions don’t stop at the pigs either, as pretty much every enemy you face will go down in a heap of gore. None of this is done in an offensive way or anything, its genuinely comical and adds to the visceral atmosphere of the game.
Whats interesting is that the blood and gore isn’t just for aesthetics. In Nekro, blood is actually a primary resource for your necromancer. It acts much like mana would in traditional RPGs, except that it does not regenerate over time. Instead, you gain blood when you down baddies and gain even more when you ‘consume’ their corpses. Its certainly a tad gruesome but it adds a very interesting mechanic of resource management to the game. If you consume corpses you may gain a lot of mana, but you also require the corpses to spawn your armies. So there’s a balancing act that requires strategy with regards to how you use the resources available to you at any given time.
Nekro looks like its shaping up to be quite the grizzly adventure!