OtherSide Entertainment have published another Stygian Sentinel update, and this one has some big news in it. But before we get into that, it’s worth noting that Nate Wells recently joined the OtherSide Entertainment team:

Nate Wells, who has Irrational, Naughty Dog and Crystal Dynamics on his art direction CV, has moved to OtherSide Entertainment. The studio was founded by the creative team behind Ultima Underworld to work on spiritual successor Underworld Ascendant, which will be Wells’ first project to oversee.

“I’m thrilled to be working with Nate again,” says Paul Neurath, OtherSide Entertainment co-founder. He and Wells were previously team mates when working together on Thief and System Shock 2.

Keep Mr. Wells in mind; we’ll see him pop up presently.

Anyhow, the main body of the latest Sentinel concerns movement, and in particular some updated movement options that should already be in the prototype (for those of you who’ve been exploring that):

Today we are updating the Prototype build with new gameplay features. First up is more advanced movement modes. The team are fans of Jackie Chan movies, Parkour and David Belle, and American Ninja Warrior. Moving through a space with grace, flow and just feeling awesome doing it, is one of the goals for movement in the Underworld.

When a game has great movement controls, like the old Id games Doom and Quake, they become an extension of the player. No thought is needed for basic navigation, and it opens up for players to become more creative and skilled at getting around the world. In recent memory Mirror’s Edge did this especially well. The Parkour skills chain together so beautifully and when you master the game it is like a ballet moving around the game world.

Tim and Will have put together the bones we can build on for a robust movement system. They have decided – at least for the moment- to have full body awareness. This means that the body of the player can be seen by the player, and it also reacts like any other physical object in the world. Momentum matters. Run faster you jump further. Chain jumps together you keep your momentum going, stop for a second and your momentum is lost. Jumping wall to wall if you pause you start sliding down the side of the wall. Sliding down a slope is fast, running up a slope is slower than on a flat plane.

One of the consistent themes that we noticed when doing the Spam Spam Spam Humbug recap of Underworld Ascendant news (from 2015) was that the idea of physics came up again and again; OtherSide Entertainment are really trying to take advantage of their physics engine to get maximum results from the physical interactions between objects in the game. Adopting a movement system like this one certainly plays right into that wheelhouse.

OtherSide have also been working on combat lately:

Tim is trying to make each encounter more meaningful and impactful. We will also keep the combat encounters intimate, giving more opportunity to show off unique features of the monsters and opponents. If you look back on the simple combat of Ultima Underworld they were all intimate affairs.

That is the feeling we are going after, but with more robust tactics, movement and use of the 3D space than was technically possible in the original games. Enemies with have ‘tells’ so the player can learn to react to them properly. We are still looking at other complexities like locational damage, status effects, dodging and blocking. How complex we push the AI in combat is being experimented with, but we expect them to have options, not just ‘ARRGH kill the player’ and ‘oh no I’m hurt! Run away’. If they have spells they will use them, if they are carrying a magic weapon it will be equipped.

Perhaps more excitingly, however, is the reveal of a rather strikingly different art style for Underworld Ascendant, which has been the effort that the good Mr. Wells has been heading up since joining the OtherSide team:

Here’s a sneak peek at the new Art Style that Nate has been driving, what we’re terming the “Authored Look”. We think is showing wonderful potential, and we’ll be showing a bunch more of the new style soon. Tell us what you think of this sneak on the Forums!

You can see another sample image above, at the top of this article. And if you’re thinking “hey, that doorway seems oddly familiar”, well…there’s a reason for that:

You can find a couple of additional screenshots on the Underworld Ascendant forums, in this thread.

So basically, OtherSide Entertainment weren’t kidding in their last update, when they said that development on the game was transitioning over to full production!

(Hat tip: Sergorn Dragon, for the article about Nate Wells)