Zeno Clash was released yesterday, making it the first IGF game to go live since the GDC. Seeing the game in person last month reinforced our original notion that Zeno Clash is a brutal first-person melee fighting game with a surreal story set in and beautiful and disturbing world. This debut title for Ace Software brings something truly original and creepy to the table.

Creepy surreal siblings attack!

Zeno Clash immerses you in a gorgeous and crazy world. Many of the things in the world are related: they are children of the Father-Mother, the part-bird part-human hermaphrodite. You play as Ghat, a son of the Father-Mother. You start the story on the run, because it looks like you’ve killed the Father-Mother, and your siblings are not pleased with you. It makes for a very personal story about family conflict, rather than a traditional fantasy tale of good versus evil. The enemies you face are individually named, and are your brothers and sisters. As the game progresses, you learn more and more about what happened through a series of flashbacks, until you finally learn the truth at the end of the game, a 4-5 hour journey.

One of our concerns with Zeno Clash before we could see it in action was whether or not a first-person melee game would work. There are interesting psychology-based discussions of what happens to depth when you represent a 3D world on a 2D screen, but what it comes down to is this: try closing one eye, and reaching for a full cup on the counter. It’s a little tricky. Now, with your eye still closed, try fighting off your brothers and sisters as they come to seek bloody revenge for the Father-Mother like your life depends on it. See the problem?

To our pleasant surprise, Zeno Clash is not only aware of this problem, but also aware of visual and computer tricks to make the game play smoothly. For one, they play a lot with the field of view, particularly when you’re switching between enemies you’re locked on to. They also make the enemies look closer than they really are—if they were actually close enough for your paltry arms to hit, there would be significant clipping issues. Instead, they toy with how close everything looks to trick you into standing at the correct distance to effectively beat down your family.

At the heart of this surreal game is the combat. There are all sorts of weapons, both ranged and melee, and a combat system that gets more complex as the game goes on. People who play tabletop role playing games are generally familiar with the idea of getting a bonus for having range on an opponent in melee combat, but in Zeno Clash you get to really feel what a difference a staff makes when fighting someone who carries only his fists. The ranged weapons don’t do much damage themselves, but they will make your opponents run for cover—so long as your weapon is loaded. When you go to reload your weapon, they run out and try to disarm you. Every weapon has an infinite amount of ammunition, but your clips are small. Firearms make good tactical weapons, but the mechanics keep you focused on the up-close and personal conflict. Who has which weapon in combat is a constant flow: both Ghat and his siblings can disarm opponents and pick up weapons from the ground during combat.

David Caloguerea and Carlos Bordeu (right)

Photo by Kate McKiernan

In addition to tricking your visual system into doing its bidding, Zeno Clash uses a lock-on system to make the combat flow more smoothly. David Caloguerea, who we spoke to about the game, said that they tried many different types of lock-on systems until they found one that worked well with the visual tricks they were using and made the gameplay feel natural. Although the game auto-locks you on to a target once you begin attacking it, you can manually select a lock-on target, and you can always turn and flee from combat, even when you’re locked on to someone.

The game is violent and the combat is brutal, but Zeno Clash has a surprisingly low death toll, ranking in at only one (we have our suspicions on who). In the story, combat is a means to an end: escape. Ghat doesn’t have to kill his siblings to get away from them, just incapacitate them for the moment.

For those who just can’t get enough of the combat system, there is a challenge mode where you can battle your way through a series of fights, clawing for position on leaderboards for who can make it fastest and farthest into the tower. This mode doesn’t unlock until you’ve beaten the game, though, and is reported by recent reviews to be significantly more challenging than the game itself.

Zeno Clash is available world-wide for $19.95 from its Chilean developers both on Direct2Drive and on Steam. The system requirements call for a relatively recent computer build, so as always with computer title, make sure you check the system requirements before purchasing. That said, for $20, Zeno Clash looks to be a very different and rewarding game.

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