How To Navigate A Dark Void

Yesterday we rolled on down to Capcom's San Mateo offices to check out the latest pre-alpha build of Dark Void. If you haven't been keeping up, this is the third-person shooter-slash-air-combat game in production at Airtight Games, the people who previously brought you Crimson Skies back on the first Xbox. You're Will, you're stuck in the Bermuda Triangle, you've got a jetpack. All these aliens are wearing robot suits. Nikola Tesla is there. It's bananas!

What we saw of Dark Void back at E3 was a "proof of concept," according to senior producer Morgan Gray. The level on display there was pieced together to show the running and gunning, then the cover mechanics, then the jetpack flight, one checklist feature after another. Yesterday we got to see an actual level from the game itself, which will supposedly integrate all those actions seamlessly together.

This level had Will flying from one hovering alien installation to the next, disabling some energy shields. Inside each small base, there was some traditional third-person shooting to be had. The shooting in Dark Void is unapologetically modeled after Gears of War. You snap to cover with a button press, then peek up or around the cover to squeeze off shots. You know how that part works.

That's when you're on a horizontal plane, at least. Capcom's been pushing the game's "vertical cover" as a major marketing point, with good reason; it's a pretty different kind of action. You're basically clinging to the top or bottom of platforms, doing the whole stop-and-pop thing but then using your jetpack when you want to fly to the next cover point. There's a lot of cool action moves you can pull off here, like grabbing an enemy on the other side of the platform and flinging them down into the pit below, or giving a quick burst of the jetpack to dart to another lateral cover point.

At E3, you could already air-jack the aliens' bizarre gyroscopic UFOs and turn them against their makers. That's still in place, but now Airtight has added guns to Will's jetpack, so even when you're zooming around all Rocketeer-style, you've got some offensive options. The designers haven't even gotten into the balancing phase yet, so it's hard to say how vulnerable you'll be in a dogfight against alien aircraft--but it's a nice addition, at least.

Gray filled us in on a few more story details while we were in the house. You won't start the game with the jetpack, actually; instead, you'll go a couple of hours with no helmet, or jets, or anything before picking up a small hover pack that serves as an educational precursor to the full rocket-powered deal. And where do you get all this gear? That's where Tesla comes in. It seems he's also stranded in the void and will play a major part in the game's storyline. So far David Bowie is not signed to reprise the Tesla role, but I was at least heartened to find out Gray has had the same idea. So here's to hoping.

The demo ended with a fight against a big robotic mini-boss shaped like some kind of quadrupedal animal. The best part about it: multiple orange bodily weak points that stood out in stark contrast to the cold blue exoskeleton. It reminded me of bosses from R-Type or Contra, which is never, ever a bad thing.

Jeff had a nice chat with Mr. Gray, so here's that, along with a bunch of video from the demo.




And screenshots of that same demo!

Gallery

We were all fairly impressed with Dark Void after the short demo ended, though I admit I'm a little sad there won't be any multiplayer in this one, like Crimson Skies had. The flight and dogfighting mechanics seem like they'd lend themselves really well to a competitive environment. But then again, if Airtight can pour all their time and resources into building a kick-ass single-player campaign, it may stand on its own just fine.