HomeFeaturesFlintlock: The Siege Of Dawn
Don’t call it a God of War killer, but Flintlock feels like a classic summer blockbusterNapoleon Dynamite
Napoleon Dynamite
Image credit:Kepler Interactive
Image credit:Kepler Interactive
Swashbuckling third-person action-RPGFlintlock: The Siege Of Dawnis, amongst other things, a gentle homage to New Zealand, developer A44 Games’s country of origin. You do have to look for it, mind you. The game’s art direction at large is an elegant hodgepodge of inspirations that deserves to be unpicked carefully after release.
Flintlock the Siege of Dawn | Extended Gameplay OverviewWatch on YouTube
Flintlock the Siege of Dawn | Extended Gameplay Overview
But there are also more personal flashes of the studio’s own stomping grounds, especially in the vegetation and geology: pōhutukawa “Christmas trees” with rusty red flowers, and a view of a mountain range that, as art director Marie-Charlotte Derne told me during a one-hour hands-off preview showing at GDC, is based on New Zealand’s South Island. “We intentionally strayed away from the more classic and I would say, expected representation of mountains, which is the Nordic influence usually,” she said. “Instead, we decided to pull from the nature of our country. So we extracted the sense of New Zealand’s geology, fauna and flora and sprinkled elements of this throughout the game to create a unique identity.”
Image credit:Kepler Interactive
The renegade gods - who escape from the Great Below during the prologue - are found across the world map. Creative director Simon Dasan describes Flintlock’s landscape as “wide linear”, opening up when you enter a region to encompass optional side areas, secrets and challenges, then closing back down as you approach the next plot point. It’s structured principally around lodestones, this game’s equivalent forDark Soulsbonfires - fast travel and upgrade points which heal you while respawning your enemies. They’re more generously distributed than those of the Souls games, however: as Dasan explained, A44 don’t want you to spend too much time fighting your way back to the bossroom after respawning.
Image credit:Kepler Interactive
Image credit:Kepler Interactive
