HomeNewsNever Grave: The Witch and The Curse
Palworld devs' next game is a base-building Dead Cells and Hollow Knight mash-upNever Grave: The Witch And The Curse’s demo is actually pretty all right
Never Grave: The Witch And The Curse’s demo is actually pretty all right
Image credit:Pocketpair
Image credit:Pocketpair
When I first sawNever Grave: The Witch And The Curserising up theSteam Next Festcharts at the end of last week, I thought, “Oh! That’s a neatHollow Knight-looking Metroivanida roguelike, I’ll definitely give that a go.” And having played its demo over the weekend, I can confirm: it’s certainly an intriguing little thing that I’ll be keen to keep an eye on when it launches into early access, possibly sometime next month.
The biggest surprise was that, despite its very Hollow Knight-looking visuals, it actually plays more likeDead Cellsin practice. Instead of being a sentient lump of flesh able to inhabit infinite bodies, you’re a magical witch’s hat that can possess, discard and rematerialise your chosen sack of limbs at the touch of a button. The second thing that surprised me was that it also has quite a substantial base/village building aspect to it on the side, and the third - well, perhaps this isn’t so much of a surprise given everything I’ve just said, because it also turns out this is the next game fromPalworlddevelopers Pocketpair. Yep, it all makes a bit more sense now.
Before you all groan inwardly at the thought of indulging another Pocketpair game, I must stress again that Never Grave is actually pretty all right. Its hack and slash combat feels good in the hands, and navigating its proc gen hallways with your limited health and pool of growing abilities creates that same kind of nervous trepidaton as setting out on a new Dead Cells run. The demo isn’t flush with tons of weapon types and stat buffs, admittedly, but it does bring a few interesting things of its own to the table to give it a bit more personality than just another Dead Cells/Hollow Knight clone.
Image credit:Pocketpair
Image credit:Pocketpair
