Initially known simply as Project Wight, it is about a young monster living in early Medieval Scandinavia, whose mother was slain by Vikings and who now seeks its vengeance upon them.
The extended gameplay trailer is here
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Tropes seen in Darkborn:
- Aura Vision: The so-called "deep sight" in the gameplay trailer neatly highlights the living beings in the radius, along with some objects of note.
- Bequeathed Power: When the young Darkborn in the gameplay trailer finds his adult kin chained up and dying from many wounds, he gently takes his face in his hands before its death, and this transfers to him the ability to throw thorns and to tear human throats out with his teeth from stealth.
- Boss Subtitles: The boss seen in the gameplay trailer is immediately subtitled as "Alsvartr the Ravenous, Worldbreaker".
- Cannibalism Superpower: The gameplay trailer shows that Darkborn gets stronger by consuming humans. Simply eating a single Thane is enough to grow from a tiny child-sized creature to stand taller than a human.
- Evolution Power-Up: Preview footage shows that Wights/Darkborn go from child to adolescent to adult stages, growing larger and developing new abilities as they age.
- Eye Scream: In the gameplay trailer, gliding from a height and straight onto a Viking's back as a child results in the Darkborn killing him through gouging his eyes out.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: The preview material invokes this. On one hand, Darkborn is a vicious and dangerous monster that massacres humans, while the humans themselves wiped out most of your race before the game began. On the other hand, it began as a simple child that only wanted to survive while the humans sought to eliminate the dangerous monsters that had preyed on them for years.
- Horny Vikings: All the available material dating back to the game's Project Wight days shows Vikings that do in fact wear helmets with horns, which are also often curved forward, making it particularly easy to grab them (though presumably giving some protection from sideway strikes.) This drew plenty of criticism from the initial trailer onwards. The first boss,Alsvartr the Ravenous, has complete stag's horns on his helmet to denote his power.
- Literal Disarming: The gameplay trailer shows that once grown beyond his child form, Darkborn's attacks will outright rip limbs off after a few strikes, or instantly, if you are in Berserk mode.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Preview footage portrays the older Darkborn as capable of lettting out a piercing shriek that disorients enemies.
- Off with His Head!: The gameplay trailer shows that ripping the target's head off is one of the finishing moves for the grown Darkborn.
- Slashed Throat: In the gameplay trailer, one Viking holds your mother up while the other stabs her in the throat, before the body is casually tossed away.
- Spike Shooter: The first attack Darkborn gets in the gameplay trailer is the ability to make a thorn protrude from the middle of the palm, and then to shoot it.
- Super Mode: Gameplay trailer shows that in Darkborn's grown form, he moves faster and pretty much every attack instantly rips enemies' limbs off.
- Sympathetic P.O.V.: Preview footage shows that the game starts with the player character as a child hiding in a cave while humans hack apart their father's corpse for trophies.
- Tree Cover: The young Darkborn at the start of the gameplay trailer is small enough to be completely covered by grass and ferns.
- Use Your Head: Alsvartr the Ravenous, the boss of the gameplay trailer, can grab grown Darkborn and headbutt him.
