German developer Ascaron recently announced that it is following up its 2004 action-RPG Sacred with a sequel that'll simultaneously appear on PC and Xbox 360. Though it's still about a year away, Ascaron gave TeamXbox a brief peek at Sacred 2: Fallen Angel at this week's Game Developers Conference.
"It's clear from first glance that Sacred 2 is going to be heavy on eye candy. Heiko tom Felde, Ascaron's director of publishing, told TeamXbox that the title will use a lot of graphic effects, and that the Xbox 360 version will have even more than the PC version. He zoomed in on an onscreen character, then clicked through changes to the character's armor to show how elaborate the look can be.
Much like other RPGs, you start with a basic armor set, but in time you gather a lot of loot, which gives you more powerful and beneficial items that you can don-there are up to 20 pieces you can layer into a full armor set. And the visual look of some items is stunning, with brightly colored particle flourishes and pulsing translucent enhancements. "
The Koalition writes: "To be clear, this list is in regards to isometric-styled hack-and-slash action RPGs. If you've ever played a Diablo game or anything like that, then you have a pretty good idea. There are lots of games and franchises in this genre, but it also seems to be one of the most under-represented each and every gaming generation. Releases are few and far between, but each successive title seems to always garner praise and success. One of the most iconic franchises in all of gaming - Diablo - basically started the entire subgenre and it's still going strong to this day. With Diablo III finally set to release on consoles soon, I thought this was a good time to take a look back at all of the best the action RPG genre has to offer this generation."
Definitely looking forward to Diablo III on consoles. Very anxious to see what has been added and taken away from the PC version.
I enjoyed Torchlight 2 and Path of Exile should be on the list.
POE is very hard!
Dark Souls is not in the ARPG genre.
It has action of course but ARPG is something else.
Do explain sir...i've been calling them all Action RPGs up until now.
An RPG with real time combat...is what I have been calling ARPGS.
Good article. A bit sparse, it would have been nice to hear a bit more detail about each game instead of a short, basic description.
But good. I enjoyed the read.
Yeah more detail would have been better, maybe some information about *really* makes them different besides the setting and whatnot. It's tough to get too detailed and keep the list relatively brief, though.
Thanks for reading!
Author is it in that order?
If so I would pick Diablo 1,2,3 as first three. Everything else comes after.
This article was focused on only this generation of consoles as a year-range, so Diablo I & II were excluded :)
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is made by an UK-based gaming company “Ascaron.” It Is a prequel to Sacred which sets about 2000 years before the events of Sacred, the prequel has a lot more than Sacred, but does that mean Sacred 2 can top off the Diablo series or It will just stay to the “Diablo Clone” status?
Digitally Downloaded writes: "So you might be playing Diablo III. Or you might be seeing the number 37 in your nightmares right now. But either way it’s hard to deny there’s a thrill to the hack-and-slash lootfests that the original Diablo made so popular, and has been imitated so many times since.
But perhaps you have an old PC, or you stick to playing games on consoles. Well, never fear, you can still be looting along with everyone else. "
This guy is screwed in the head, the best dark ARPG/hack n slash/dungeon crawler atm is Path of Exile and the only game that looks good enough to compete with it is Grim Dawn but that is not even in close beta yet, the games those guy suggest suck big time some of them look really horrible like they r from the 90's, article fail beyond measure.
Please publish this game!
This looks like a game worthy to play.. Hopefully it comes out soon or maybe a release date along the lines...20 layers!!! thats a lot of armor....
i played the first game, it was a lot of fun as a hack and slasher and was very very long. I hope they make some of the spells better but the 3d graphics are a major upgrade from the sprite based game that it was... basically this game is a open world diablo