Phantom Hellcat Is Taking On Bayonetta And The Male Gaze

thegamer.com:

One of the most exciting new games revealed at last month’s Gamescom Opening Night Live show was Phantom Hellcat, a stylish hack-and-slash that mixes 2D exploration with 3D, Bayonetta-like combat. The newly-formed studio behind the game, Ironbird Creations, visited Seattle last weekend during PAX West to talk about the inspirations behind the game, including Nier: Automata, and reveal some details about the game’s dark, theatrical setting.

The setup of Phantom Hellcat is fairly straightforward: the game takes place in a prison for demons that, for mysterious reasons, has just been compromised. The demons abduct the prison’s overseer and it’s up to her daughter, Jolene, to wield her mother’s hacky slashy powers, a variety of weapons, and a series of magical masks to free her mother from this strange demon dimension.

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There’s a few elements of Phantom Hellcat that make it unique within the hack-and-slash genre. The traversal and exploration half of the game is a 2D side-scroller with metroidvania elements. As Jolene unlocks new abilities, like the masks that give her different powers, she’ll have more exploration options. Combat takes place in 3D arenas where the perspective shifts to third-person. There Jolene can unleash flurries of flash combos on her enemies, her sword spitting purple sparks in every direction. Weapon swapping can happen on the fly to weave combos together, similar to Devil May Cry 5, though Ironbird Creations wasn’t ready to reveal her other weapons just yet.

The world Jolene explores is a supernatural theater, and she is cast as the hero in an epic play. Each level will be themed after a different