Described by the creators as first-person fantasy co-op open world RPG, it is set during the equivalent to medieval times, on an island 16 x 16 kilometers in size. It used to have hundreds of thousands of people living there at its peak, but practically all of them have now been reduced to mindless shamblers as a result of a mass instance of Demonic Possession.
Some videos of the current game are here
and here.
Tropes seen in the preview materials for The Black Masses:
- Heavily Armored Mook: There are possessed knights, who are still fully armored (even if they have black blood dripping from their helmet's eyeholes) and are capable of fighting with their weapons. In the pre-alpha footage, their armor really seems to make a difference - the possessed knight survived about a couple dozen axe blows before going down, while regular possessed go down in one or two.
- Literal Disarming: Pre-alpha footage shows that your attacks can hack enemies' limbs off.
- Playing with Fire: The demon seen in the pre-alpha has fire attacks.
- Rooftop Confrontation: The pre-alpha footage culminates with the player hacking their way through the possessed knights on the floors of the tower to reach the top, where they confront a proper burning demon, as opposed to the zombie-like possessed they encountered earlier. They also lose that battle, with the demon able to use its magic to throw the player from the roof.
- Shockwave Stomp: The fire demon seen at the end of the pre-alpha can generate a ring of flame around itself, which also knocks the player back a fair amount. The footage even ends with the demon using this attack a second time to outright knock the player from the tower roof they were on.
- Spin Attack: The player performs a full spin with their melee weapon in the pre-alpha footage, which deals plenty of damage to all enemies around them, and also somehow generates flames.
- Sprint Meter: Pre-alpha footage shows a pretty traditional green bar in between the health and mana ones, which is consumed through running or swinging your weapon.
- You All Look Familiar: The price of a small developer creating massive hordes is that there are only a couple of male and female possessed models, at least in the pre-alpha footage.
- Zombie Apocalypse: All the materials for the game so far essentially present a small medieval-era island completely taken over by the "possessed", who are all reduced to a state pretty much equivalent to that of a zombie.
