Rob Pardo left Blizzard more than a decade ago, after a stint as chief creative officer and working as lead designer on games like StarCraft: Brood War, Warcraft 3, and World of Warcraft. Since then, Pardo co-founded Bonfire Studios, which has been quietly toiling away for years on something new, but achingly familiar: a fast-paced, competitive multiplayer game called Arkheron.
Officially announced on Wednesday by Bonfire, Arkheron looks a lot like Blizzard’s newer Diablo games at a glance. Players go into rounds of Arkheron as unarmed warriors, grabbing loot like weapons (spears, daggers, crossbows, elemental staves, etc.) and Relics to build out their warrior of choice and synergizing that build with those of two allies. But unlike Diablo, which evolved from a deep dungeon crawler, Arkheron has players go up, ascending a mysterious tower, where quests, new loot, and threats await.
The biggest threat is other players. A typical game of Arkheron pits 15 teams of three players against each other, as each scrambles to secure gear and abilities that will make them formidable against opponents who are also trying to ascend the tower. Loot is a big, big deal in Arkheron; “You are your items,” Pardo stressed in a presentation with media last week. Players will fight for gear locked in chests or hidden behind per-level quests.
Arkheron draws inspiration from Diablo, PvP arena brawler Battlerite, and Dark Souls 3, Pardo said. It also clearly adapts ideas from battle royale games like Apex Legends and Fortnite — though Bonfire describes Arkheron as more like “a game of deadly musical chairs.” Teams can only ascend to the new floor of the tower through “one-team-takes-all showdowns” called Ascensions. At certain points during a match, players will be called to a location called a beacon, with a shrinking circle that will force teams to hunker down and defend their space. There are more teams in each level than there are beacons, so players will inevitably come face-to-face with the competition to see who moves up.
Ultimately, to reach the top of the tower, two teams of three players will face off in a final confrontation. The trio with the right builds, the best gear, and the smartest strategy will, in theory, win the battle. And then they’ll start all over again in a new match of Arkheron.
The gear in Arkheron consists of weapons and supernatural abilities powered by Relics, including crowns and amulets. Relic abilities include powers like creating shield barriers, explosive area-of-effect attacks, and temporary invulnerability or invisibility. Like Diablo, full sets of Relics can impart more powerful hero abilities. Most likely, though, players will have to mix and match Relics to tailor a build to their and their team’s play style. To keep things interesting, Bonfire says it will rotate lootable gear in and out seasonally, allowing the meta to shift over time, keeping the game at the same level of complexity, but not overwhelming for new players.
Arkheron is played from an isometric top-down perspective, but in an interesting twist, players have free-aim camera control, unlike the fixed cameras of Diablo 4 or League of Legends. The option to spin the camera around gives Arkheron a bit more of a third-person shooter feel, based on gameplay shown by Bonfire.
The developer also emphasized the importance of audio in Arkheron‘s strategic play. The studio showed a gameplay snippet from internal playtesting showcasing how one team heard the nearby sounds of an opposing team exploring on a floor above them. A portal lay open between those two floors, and both teams knew a confrontation was coming. Both tried to ambush the other, talking out strategies and positioning during the standoff.
While enemy teams are the most serious threat in Arkheron, random spawns and the occasional unkillable enemy can also throw a spanner in the works. Another gameplay snippet introduced us to The Fury, an “avoid at all costs” monster. One team knew The Fury was there, while an opposing team didn’t — and the latter was lured into a trap where The Fury basically acted as a fourth member of the team that emerged victorious.
Arkheron, like some other games recently released by former Blizzard designers (Sunderfolk, Wildgate), appears rich and deep, mixing genres into a unique stew that may resonate with players who love MOBAs, dungeon crawlers, and Soulslike games (particularly the roguelike-y Elden Ring Nightreign). But Arkheron also looks potentially quite complex, and may be aiming for a very specific audience or hardcore PvP enthusiasts.
If Arkheron sounds intriguing to you, Bonfire Studios is holding an alpha playtest on PC this weekend, which you can sign up for via Steam. That test runs during the following dates and times:
- Friday, Sept. 19, 11 a.m. PDT – 11 p.m. PDT
- Saturday, Sept. 20, 11 a.m. PDT – 11 p.m. PDT
- Sunday, Sept. 21, 11 a.m. PDT – 11 p.m. PDT
Arkheron will be released for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X, but does not have a confirmed release window.
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