The latest Stygian Sentinel update on the Underworld Ascendant website gives us another look at the footage from the game’s September prototype build, with narration from designer Tim Stellmach.

The Prototype is tightly focused around highlighting key areas of recent progress:

• We wanted to have a big step up on the visual bar from the rough prototypes we showed during the Kickstarter. The final game will look even better of course, but this snapshot shows a lot of progress.
• Finding the right look of the Stygian Abyss. We looked at classical artists like Dore, 18th century impressionists, and even some surrealists out of Russia. We wanted to show a couple of different types of play spaces, so we are showcasing a few signature spaces in the Abyss, such as the colossal caldera, with a towering lava vortex, and a more typical hallway and natural meld you could expect to see while travelling in the Abyss.
• – In the gameplay department we’re showing some fun stealth gameplay, but flipped on its head of what we designed for Thief. Here a stealthy monster, the Shadow Beast, is stalking the player. Our protagonist is a virtually unarmed rogue who must rely on her wits to defeat a deadly Shadow Beast. This interaction highlights the capability of the Improvisation Engine, from manipulating the lava flow and lighting torches to change the light levels to keep the beast away.
• Then there is the immersive audio soundscape to help deepen the immersion, as well as select voice overs to convey the game’s narrative. If you listen closely to the soundscape you will hear some ‘musical’ beats happening. We have some ideas on how to work with sound as a game system and to enhance the character of the Underworld itself. We learned a ton of lessons about sound and its importance on Thief and System Shock 2. Just to be clear, the VO of the rogue in the prototype is there only as a narrative piece to explain what the player might be thinking. There will not be player VO in the final game, as it’s a true role-playing game and we don’t intend to speak for the player.

The Prototype covers just a tiny corner of the Abyss, and is focused on just the single encounter between a rogue character and the Shadow Beast. In the actual game there will be a lot more going on, and many more choices for a player.

I have to admit: the Shadow Beast looks a lot cooler now than it did way back when.