On 30th August, Netflix will premier the first episode of their new upcoming series “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance”, a sequel to Jim Henson’s 1982 film “The Dark Crystal”, but that’s not all! During E3 2019, at a Nintendo Direct, a Switch game was also announced. During Gamescom 2019, Netflix dedicated a special corner in their booth for a demo of the upcoming game.
The game will be a turn-based strategy game where players will be able to dive into “The Dark Crystal” universe of the series and enjoy the story through different campaigns. As players progress through the story, they will be able to recruit new allies who will gain different abilities as they grow stronger. Players will be able to further enhance their allies with different items and gears.
Whilst the Gamescom 2019 demo only featured an introduction stage and an “advanced” stage, it was still enough to give an idea on the core gameplay. Whilst the gameplay doesn’t really introduce any new concept, the game’s foundations are quite strong. The original of the series already has a rich universe for players to explore and the core system of the game does tick all the boxes required to make a turn-based strategy game good.
As expected, the introduction stage is quite straight forward, having players get familiar with the game’s control and combat, but the advance stage really shows that the game is more than just a marketing project for the upcoming series. The enemy’s AI doesn’t just blindly attack players’ allies, but also has decent strategies, throwing out crowd controls to keep players’ allies out of combat and support other units to make them harder for players to deal with.
Through equipping different skills on allies, players will also be able to form basic combinations to deal additional damage to enemies or to check certain requirements for skills with stronger damage. At the beginning of each stage, players will be able to place their allies on set locations on the map. Players will have to carefully set where to place which ally depending on each allies’ skills, stats, and the enemy’s formation to ensure victory.
The game’s graphics is up to debate as developers have opted to stay true to the original film. Whilst it may not be able to compete in terms of details with other new games, the game does have an interesting touch to it that falls in place with the series. Whether or not you will watch the upcoming series, or you’re just looking for a decent game to play, “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance” is definitely a game to look out for, especially if you’re into the turn-based strategy genre.
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is set to release in 2019 for PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Windows, and macOS.
▍The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Trailer