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Unending Dawn (绝晓) Open World Unreal Engine 5 PV | Elden Ring, Sekiro and Genshin mashup

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Gold Member
Not much is known about the game, such as a release date, a possible PC release and if the game is getting an English debut.

It is, however, being developed by Parcaes Fate Studio, with the game running on Unreal Engine 5.
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First off, Elden Ring fans may notice the incredibly similar art direction- from the ruined castles to the red trees.

Even the enemies at the start of the game bear more than a passing resemblance to the early game enemies, the Soldiers of Godrick in Limgrave.
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image.png

However, once the combat starts the gameplay takes on more of a Sekiro approach- your character has a poise meter, and attacks are moreso about breaking your enemy’s poise to get big finishers.

While the enemies are more of the gothic horror aesthetic seen in the Souls series, the main character and bossfight shown are quite the opposite, looking something more at home in Genshin Impact.

It should be noted that the game also features special moves- not unlike Sekiro again, though until we see full gameplay we won’t be able to tell just how far the rabbit hole goes.
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Fake

Fake

Member
IDK what to think, but still digging.

Maybe cell shading is better for an anime game?
 
M

MALpractice311

Member
I don't know for certain if these are stolen assets, but they're damn close. Like "someone needs to call Fromsoft and let them take a look at this" close.
 
Danjin44

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I hate on the nose copy type games.....this just feels weird, like a bad fan art.

There is big difference between getting inspiration and just downright copying them.
 
Pejo

Pejo

Member
It's early footage so I'll take everything with a grain of salt, but I don't hate it outright. Needs tons of refinement and polish and the "inspiration" is a bit on the nose, but the genre is in dire need of combat systems that aren't "just wail on an enemy with 200 flashy moves until they die". I dunno if this game will deliver that, but it has potential to.
 
KXVXII9X

KXVXII9X

Member
It is hard to have any respect for these kinds of developers. It is almost like originality, art direction, and creativity aren't taught. I've seen a lot of hobbyist Devs say how art isn't important when making games and it shows. They just take existing ideas and styles and splice them together with no sense of cohesion.
 
Saber

Saber

Gold Member
I will keep an open mind for now, though my initial impression is that is a mid-low type of generic game with inconsistent visual art. The character basically defending everything doesn't help the presentation either.
 
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Pejo

Pejo

Member
KXVXII9X said:
It is hard to have any respect for these kinds of developers. It is almost like originality, art direction, and creativity aren't taught. I've seen a lot of hobbyist Devs say how art isn't important when making games and it shows. They just take existing ideas and styles and splice them together with no sense of cohesion.
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The other take is that game dev in 2024 is extremely expensive and complex. Cutting corners on store bought assets and "borrowing" bits from already successful/well known games has kind of a two benefit effect. It will get people talking about your otherwise non-noteworthy game and it will bring with it the more open minded part of the original games' fanbase to give it a try. I can't imagine breaking into the industry at this stage of the game without some huge windfall or a greedy company like Tencent that funds your development but compromises many parts of your vision in the process.

And I want to be clear, I'm not defending this game or it's choices, I just heard of it for the first time in this thread, but I get why they would do some of these things.
 
KXVXII9X

KXVXII9X

Member
Pejo said:
The other take is that game dev in 2024 is extremely expensive and complex. Cutting corners on store bought assets and "borrowing" bits from already successful/well known games has kind of a two benefit effect. It will get people talking about your otherwise non-noteworthy game and it will bring with it the more open minded part of the original games' fanbase to give it a try. I can't imagine breaking into the industry at this stage of the game without some huge windfall or a greedy company like Tencent that funds your development but compromises many parts of your vision in the process.

And I want to be clear, I'm not defending this game or it's choices, I just heard of it for the first time in this thread, but I get why they would do some of these things.
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I understand how expensive making a game is and I cannot imagine trying to support myself as an indie dev. I can imagine that being difficult. My biggest gripe is a lot of these developers try to make their games like AAA games with a team of like 5 people and a shoestring budget. Instead, I think it would be better to come up with a clever game design that is realistic with the resources they have and make it stand out another way.

I know the current trends are to make games super large and to have all of this content and be photorealistic, but I find those expectations limiting. I'm used to handheld gaming and saw how Devs were smart with working within their limits. I hate to sound like I'm against indie Devs trying to be more ambitious.

I get why they do these things to. I just hate how homogenous the industry is. I feel like a decade ago there was a clear difference between if something was inspired or completely ripped off. Now a lot of these games are ripping off the same animations and assets down to exact color palette. I think it sets a precedent which worries me.
 
Pejo

Pejo

Member
KXVXII9X said:
I understand how expensive making a game is and I cannot imagine trying to support myself as an indie dev. I can imagine that being difficult. My biggest gripe is a lot of these developers try to make their games like AAA games with a team of like 5 people and a shoestring budget. Instead, I think it would be better to come up with a clever game design that is realistic with the resources they have and make it stand out another way.

I know the current trends are to make games super large and to have all of this content and be photorealistic, but I find those expectations limiting. I'm used to handheld gaming and saw how Devs were smart with working within their limits. I hate to sound like I'm against indie Devs trying to be more ambitious.

I get why they do these things to. I just hate how homogenous the industry is. I feel like a decade ago there was a clear difference between if something was inspired or completely ripped off. Now a lot of these games are ripping off the same animations and assets down to exact color palette. I think it sets a precedent which worries me.
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Great points. I think staying within your means definitely has its merits as well, but on the other hand I'm happy to see smaller studios finally getting out of the pixel era and into more modern stuff. Frankly, that's the big benefit I see about Unreal Engine. Having so many prebuilt assets in the store to allow you to fast forward the parts you don't want to spend time on and focus on the parts that make your game stand out. This particular video makes it tough to see what exactly makes the game stand out though, which I think is why it's getting a lot of flak.

I also think that when we see super early proof-of-concept videos like this, there's a non-zero chance they're trying to pull a "Lost Soul Aside" or a "Shenmue III" and shop the game around to publishers that will help fund/develop the title in order to get it made. But in order for Publishers to notice, you're gonna need some metrics that show that there is an audience for the game to begin with. There are few fanbases out there that are as passionate as the FROM/Souls fanbase, so it seems as good a target as any.

Anyways, maybe I'm entirely wrong and this is just vaporware or a cheap cashgrab after all, you never really can tell. I just think it's interesting thinking about what's going on behind the scenes sometimes.
 
KXVXII9X

KXVXII9X

Member
Pejo said:
Great points. I think staying within your means definitely has its merits as well, but on the other hand I'm happy to see smaller studios finally getting out of the pixel era and into more modern stuff. Frankly, that's the big benefit I see about Unreal Engine. Having so many prebuilt assets in the store to allow you to fast forward the parts you don't want to spend time on and focus on the parts that make your game stand out. This particular video makes it tough to see what exactly makes the game stand out though, which I think is why it's getting a lot of flak.

I also think that when we see super early proof-of-concept videos like this, there's a non-zero chance they're trying to pull a "Lost Soul Aside" or a "Shenmue III" and shop the game around to publishers that will help fund/develop the title in order to get it made. But in order for Publishers to notice, you're gonna need some metrics that show that there is an audience for the game to begin with. There are few fanbases out there that are as passionate as the FROM/Souls fanbase, so it seems as good a target as any.

Anyways, maybe I'm entirely wrong and this is just vaporware or a cheap cashgrab after all, you never really can tell. I just think it's interesting thinking about what's going on behind the scenes sometimes.
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You're very knowledgeable about this and gave me some new perspectives to think about! I hope I'm wrong too and they can transform it into to have more of an identity once they have more notice or a publisher willing to fund the game. I think it is really interesting thinking about it too!
 
Exentryk

Exentryk

Member
Combat looks good.

But the game needs more like:
- Faster and better traversal (like say flying/gliding/etc)
- Combat needs some magic or different classes or more variety in moves.
- Genshin aesthetic is manageable, but anime girl with pigtails as the main character isn't working for me.
- Barely has any narrative. This is the main reason why I don't play any Souls games.
 
Pejo

Pejo

Member
March Climber said:
Sony has been on a roll lately with bringing interesting Chinese and Korean content over to Playstation.
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I'm cautiously optimistic about things with Sony lately. I wonder how much of it is Totoki vs. just market conditions. Regardless, it's very nice to see more eastern games and content back on Playstation again.
 
CamHostage

CamHostage

Member
Pejo said:
I'm cautiously optimistic about things with Sony lately. I wonder how much of it is Totoki vs. just market conditions. Regardless, it's very nice to see more eastern games and content back on Playstation again.
Click to expand...

A little bit of management, a little bit of market...

Sony's endeavors through the China Hero Project (which begat F.I.S.T. and Boundary and Anno: Mutationem and Lost Soul Aside) has been a nice success (and has given Sony reason to make star appearances regularly at ChinaJoy expo events,) and they've been working to get PlayStations into gamers' homes in China and Korea for a long time. However, so has Xbox (remember when they promoted a couple Nexon games, trying to make stuff like KartRider a big deal for Xbox players?), and it just hasn't worked out the same for them. PlayStation just seems to fit the needs of a console in Eastern gaming homes, and so it gets the benefit of homegrown software being made for consoles in that territory...

...Still, PC is entrenched as the gaming device in both territories, and second (outside mobile) in both territories is actually Nintendo Switch. This hasn't translated into a ton of Chinese or Korean game developers loving on Switch (although funnily enough, several of the PlayStation CHP games have eventually been ported down to Switch after the initial PS release,) but I wonder if winds will change with Switch 2?
 
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