Preview: Nosgoth

Picking your moment is important as a vampire. The humans huddle together in the skeletal remains of a smashed city, training their repeater crossbows and pistols on the windows, hoping for a glimpse of their stalkers. From our vantage point on the rooftop I, and my fellow Reavers, spot a human Prophet stray a little too far from the group, a winged Sentinel swoops in and snatches the Prophet from the ground and hurls her frail body into a nearby stone wall. The moment is now. In unison, we leap from the rooftop and through the windows of the human’s fragile sanctuary. After a few short seconds of rending claws and panicked repeater crossbow fire the three remaining humans are butchered. We feast on the fresh kill, recovering our strength and prepare for the inevitable counter attack.

Welcome to Nosgoth, the latest entry in the much revered Legacy of Kain series!

Or is it? It’s hard to tell whether Nosgoth actually wants to be a Legacy of Kain game or not, it contains familiar names and imagery but little of the atmosphere and frankly, fans of the series will not have wanted a multiplayer asymmetrical shooter to be the next installment of their beloved franchise. Nosgoth is wearing a Legacy of Kain suit, but contains none of its bitter, twisted soul. To be honest, there is no need for this to be associated with Legacy of Kain at all.

That’s enough about that though isn’t it? What about the gameplay? Nosgoth is shaping up to be bloody brilliant.

Admittedly I’m a sucker for asymmetry in game design, and I find the concept of this 4v4 multiplayer third person shooter fascinating. The four unique human classes are all ranged based, utilising bows, pistols, grenades and spells and they face off against the four unique melee classes of vampires.

The humans must stick together, ensuring their fields of fire cover every angle and maintain their discipline in terms of positioning and when to utilise their special attacks. The vampires meanwhile, are not limited to the ground level walkways that their enemies are and can ascend walls, sprint along rooftops and skulk in dark, shadowy corners. One class, the Sentinel can even take flight. This asymmetry of mobility makes for some interesting and intense battles for both sides. Playing as human is terrifying, you never know where your enemies will strike from next and it keeps the tension extremely high especially when playing against a competent vampire team. Similarly exciting is probing human defences, trying to trigger a few special abilities early so you can strike at the humans while they are on cooldown.

It’s not just combat style and movement in which humans and vampires differ, throughout each map are aid stations which humans can use to recover ammunition and to heal their wounds. Vampires have no need for ammunition of course and recover their health by feeding on vanquished humans. Yum!

Some of the more interesting classes have a high skill ceiling which will please more competitive players, but the humans seem to have the filthy end of the stick when it comes to interesting special abilities. The Hunter, Scout and Alchemist all utilise AOE attacks or stuns while the Prophet can drain health. On the other side of the war, we have the Reaver who can dodge projectiles and leap great distances and pin targets. The Sentinel who can fly and throw people around like toys. The Tyrant can make himself almost invincible for a brief period and the Deceiver can disguise himself as an enemy player! Interestingly the Deceiver also get a high damage backstab ability, so double check to make sure your friends really ARE your friends!

Nosgoth is extremely easy to jump into, and contains a decent tutorial to get you up-to-speed with some of the more nuanced mechanics. For the most part, gameplay is extremely intuitive and familiar to those who have played similar games before. You have a primary attack, sprint, dodge and a couple of active abilities depending on your class. Weapons and abilities can be unlocked by earning experience or purchased with currency in game or by purchasing “rune stones”. The other weapons available appear to be more sidegrades than upgrades, they’ll trade rate of fire for damage or speed for ammo limit. One useful feature of the in-game store is that you can rent weapons for a few days to see if you like them enough to purchase permanently. Active abilities, skins and execution animations are also available for purchase if you so desire.

The mobility of the vampires versus the firepower of the humans is the core of Nosgoth and it is shaping up very nicely indeed. Balance, progression and the free to play business model will have to be looked at closer to release to pass judgement on those aspects, but gameplay-wise Nosgoth is well worth keeping an eye on even if it may break your heart as a Legacy of Kain fan to do so,

Nosgoth is currently in closed beta, but you can gain access by purchasing a founders pack.

Tags: Asymmetry, free-to-play, Nosgoth, PC, Psyonix, square enix, Tasty Humans, Third Person Shooter