Skyrim meets The Witcher in gorgeous new open-world RPG

This upcoming open-world RPG on Steam looks like a fun blend of The Witcher 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and it looks so incredible I’m genuinely having a hard time believing it’s even real.

It’s not often that I see combat so fluid and dynamic that I have to make sure what I’m looking at isn’t actually a pre-rendered cutscene.

And yet, Alkahest made me do exactly that, because I legitimately could not believe my eyes when I watched the gameplay trailers for this game.

I don’t know how many folks actually got around to playing En Garde!, but the gameplay in Alkahest’s trailers reminded me of a first-person focused version of its environmentally-focused, soulslike gameplay.

The fluidity of the animations, from the way the little goblin enemies react to getting kicked off ledges and hit with barrels to the in-depth way in which the player character tumbles when they parry and fall, looks pre-rendered… and yet, it’s not. That’s actual gameplay.

It doesn’t hurt that the game looks awfully pretty too. Even more impressive still, it appears to be from a first time development studio. These guys are showing up a lot of AAA devs out there with this kinda polish.

So, when can we expect to get our hands on Alkahest? Absolutely no idea.

Yeah, unfortunately it doesn’t have a release date as of yet. There’s also no exact word on which systems it’ll release on, other than on PC.

Either way, I’m keeping an eye on this. This is incredibly impressive work, especially from a team of only 38 devs.

Between games like this and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I’m starting to wonder what the point of AAA devs is anymore. If a tiny team can pump out bangers like this, maybe I’ll just focus on buying AA-titles in the future instead…