Following the lush card battling of last year’s Foretales, developers Alkemi are now trying their hand at an entirely different genre with An Ankou. The top-down roguelike casts you as the titular servant of Death, reborn and forced to continue working in the afterlife, mainly through killing demons and helping lost souls. Capitalism, eh? Lay your eyes on the reveal trailer below.
The trailer gives you a glimpse at what's up here. You’ll be scavenging, crafting, exploring an open map with some random elements, performing some necromancy, and then dashing-and-slashing through enemies. A little bit V Rising, a little bit Hades, and a little bit Vampire Survivors by the looks of those screen-filling swarms.
Set in an alternative version of 19th century France (and more specifically the province of Brittany), your job is to reincarnate and escort spirits to their final resting places, all while hordes of gothic demons have invaded the lands of the living. Though, I can hear you asking: why is it called "An" Ankou rather than "The" Ankou? Well, there’s nothing special about your particular servant of death. Ankous are figures in Norman French folklore (and Breton, Cornish and Welsh, according to old Wikipedia), and every time you die, you’ll be replaced by another recently deceased person who worked as either a soldier, apothecary, or nun - this game’s version of classes.
Those classes have access to different weapons and abilities, and the team teases more additions in the future, such as a cook or a blacksmith. I recently learned that Rag Picker (people that would sift through bins in search of sellable goods) was a not-uncommon job title in the 19th century. I’d quite like to see that moveset.
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