In 2009, German studio Deck13—who would go on to make soulslikes Lords of the Fallen and The Surge series—released a third-person RPG in which you play Death's daughter. No, not Susan Sto Helit from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, though I'd kill for a game about her, but a corset-clad inhabitant of a fantasy version of Venice named Scarlett who fights with a detached scythe blade.
Venetica didn't set the world on fire thanks to a degree of jankiness and somewhat shallow combat, but did earn some fans thanks to its unusual Renaissance setting and odd ideas like the lockpicking system, in which the ghosts of two thieves tell you which order to torque your four lockpicks.
As part of GOG's summer sale, you can grab Venetica – Gold Edition for free(opens in new tab) right now. Be quick, as you've only got until 6am PST/2pm BST on Sunday, June 12 to grab it. It comes with some additional downloadable goodies, including a making of video, the soundtrack in mp3 format, the manual and an artbook (the latter in German), and something that's just labeled «Venice». As a 143MB download it's presumably not the entire Italian city, but rather a video tour of it.
We've put together a selection of our own picks as the PC Gamer collection in GOG's summer sale, with discounts on some of our favorite games. You can grab Shadow Tactics: Blade of the Shogun or XCOM 2 for 90% off, Supreme Commander Gold Edition or Bastion for 80% off, Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition or Far Cry 2 for 70% off, and more.
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