Viking Squad, a co-op indie beat 'em up game with a few twists, will be raiding the PlayStation 4 when it releases in 2015.
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The news was announced on the PlayStation Blog alongside a new gameplay trailer for the game. The trailer shows off the one largest innovation that Canada-based developer Slick Entertainment is adding to the side-scrolling beat 'em up genre: lane-based gameplay.
Each level is divided up into several – around three to five, it looks like, depending on the level – horizontal lanes that each player is snapped to. Players are free to move from lane to lane, but the concept as a whole is to make sure players will know that they will be able to hit a certain enemy or grab a certain treasure at a glance and focus more on the attacking. Making sure they're in the same lane as the target is all the aiming they need.
The game also emphasizes skill over random luck. Critical hits are not random events but rather the product of perfectly timing an attack. As characters level up in skill, so will the players as they better learn the pace of the game.
In Viking Squad, the players take on the role of viking soldiers who are out on a quest for loot to satisfy the gold lust of their Jarl. The game is made by a three-man team and is set to hit the PlayStation 4 sometime next year. Right now, the game is limited to couch co-op, though the developers are hoping to get online multiplayer functional at some point.