Praey for the Gods is an open world adventure game with huge beasts that you must surmount in order to stop an endless winter.
Combining the thrill of survival with stories-tall monsters, Praey for the Gods, by No Matter Studios, is an impressive feat for a three-man team.
Winter has descended on the island that your unnamed heroine has found themselves landed upon, and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping. Scrambling to find shelter from the cold, your hero climbs a fearsome mountain and stumbles upon a cave that is littered with drawings of a tribe of people worshipping a god. Looking for a way forward, she comes across a stone block with a gold, circular pattern containing a cylinder embedded within. As she slowly lifts the cylinder from within the stony outcrop and slams it back in three times, the doors begin to open.
Conveniently, this short tutorial teaches you precisely what you are going to need to defeat the colossal monsters: the ability to operate cylindrical switches. Each one of the behemoths has those switches on their bodies and it’s up to you to figure out how to get to them; the developers have confirmed there are several ways to climb on to each one. It’s just a matter of using tools: your hookshot to latch on to attachable ornate plates, your sail cloth to glide on to their bodies from above, or what seems to be many other ways. There is a particular way you are supposed to go about toppling the beasts, but it’s nice to know that you have some freedom in how you choose to play it out.
From what I’ve seen so far, the whole game takes place in a snowy Shadow the Colossus-adjacent open land where survival is key, and many things are desperately trying to stop you. For one, like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, your weapons have durability, and you can pick them up from enemies — which seem to pop up from anywhere, sometimes even from beneath the snow. These foes have different classes such as warrior and archer, and use their melee weapons and arrows to try to take you out. All of the ones I faced off against were simple enough to dispatch, and certainly seem as if they are there as a means to supply you with items rather than to offer a fair challenge.
Survival is a lot more than keeping your health bar above zero, too, as there are three other distinct threats that wear down on you: hunger, sleep, and cold. Hunger is simple, if you don’t eat, you’ll lose health. Same with the cold, as it will eventually start to chip away at you. Sleep, however, will take away from your stamina, making your movement slower and making it harder to climb.
There are small pockets of food dotting the landscape, such as berries on trees or the random, and more filling, cooked steak — found stuck on a pike next to a roaring campfire. Speaking of campfires — that’s how you combat the blistering cold, as being near one fills up your ‘warmth’ meter. Finally, sleep can be found on bedrolls, sometimes dropped by monsters, but mostly found within caves, typically off of the main pathways.
Being an Early Access title, I feel it necessary to touch on the state that the game is in. There are five bosses available — which you can defeat in any order — and a huge open world to explore. Weapon variation at this time is a bit limited, and the state of the survival mechanics seem a bit unfinished or unbalanced. I spent a lot of time wandering about looking for food in order to prepare for the next boss fight, but just barely found anything. All in all, it’s quite impressive in this current state and to see this level of quality from an independent development is really something.
Praey for the Gods is a fun take on the original ‘Colossus gameplay, with the addition of an open world to explore with varied weapons, smaller enemies and bitter, bitter cold. Having the option to tackle the gods in any order — in however you find the means to do so — also adds to the variety and overall makes the game feel more non-linear. The graphics are impressive for the size of the team, as is accomplishing such a task, and the epic soundtrack furthers the idea that No Matter Studios certainly know their source material.
Praey for the Gods is available now on Steam in Early Access. Check out their website and follow them on Twitter for more information.
