Wave of Darkness

Wave of Darkness is a dark fantasy based action RPG that is the second installment of the planned trilogy, initiated by Legends of Dawn, released in 2013. The developer responsible for the series is a Croatian studio Dreamatrix, and once again, the second installment was crowd-funded by the users of Kickstarter.

Plot

The plot of the game once again takes place in Narr – a world inspired by Slavonic mythology elements. The plot picks up in the exact same moment where Legends of Dawn had concluded. Nevertheless, the game tells a completely new story that can be played independently, without any plotlines from the previous installment. As it turns out, the events shown in Legends of Dawn that seemed to be an isolated incident, happened to be a prelude for upcoming battle with a much more powerful enemy. The whole region is buzzing with rumors that a mysterious evil has risen on the swamps, and the horrible monsters – known only from the legends – are preparing for an imminent attack. In the face of imminent war, Narr authorities decided to send a distress call for all neighboring lands. Hosts of heroes – including our protagonist – have once again come to help.

Mechanics

When it comes to mechanics, Wave of Darkness employs similar gameplay to its predecessor, mixing hardcore action in the vein of classic hack’n’slash games with a large freedom of gameplay and few original solutions. So, once again the focus of the game is the spacious open world that we can traverse without any limitations or invisible walls. Even while following the path outlined by the main plot, we have a complete freedom to explore, as well as the order and method of completing side quests. Completing the game in 100% should take about 70 hours.

At the beginning of our playthrough we may import our Legends of Dawn character, or create a completely new hero. Similarly to the predecessor, Wave of Darkness doesn’t have the classic limitations in form of classes, allowing our character to develop without restrictions in different schools, combining over 35 abilities, typical for few different classes. The game includes an expanded crafting system and a new method of equipment management. The number of available items, potions, and spells was increased. The runic system was improved, with runes used for, among others, opening chests and activating various mechanisms, as well as creating new spells. The developers introduced an ability to make a sacrifice to individual gods, resulting in various bonuses for our hero.

Technical aspects

When it comes to visuals, Wave of Darkness for PC doesn’t differ much from its predecessor, but the game received a bit of fine-tuning, and now works only with 64-bit operating systems. The game world is now even more diverse, with our character visiting hundreds of completely different locations, such as dungeons, crypts, catacombs, castles, camps, temples, cemeteries, docks, swamps, caves, mountains, and canyons, as well as flying islands known from the predecessor.

Last updated on September 15, 2016