In fact, slapping a “Souls-like” label on Ashen is disingenuous. More so the Souls-like that get their influences right. But there’s something special about Souls-likes, especially one crafted with as much TLC as A44’s.

This year has been stacked, especially in terms of indies.

Players like me, who would drop anything to immerse themselves in any Souls-like, let alone one as haunting and beautiful as Ashen, were bound to rush to their computers and queue up a download through the Epic Games Store no matter what else was going on in the gaming world.īut what about the rest of the gaming world? What about you? Have you played Ashen? If not, you’re missing out on one of 2018’s standout games. Yet the more I consider Ashen’s stealth release, the more it makes sense. Ultimate kicked and punched its way onto the Nintendo eShop. The show was a three-hour tumult of announcements and award winners, and many viewers treated the yearly event as a way to kill time until midnight EST when Super Smash Bros. Also true is that developer A44’s new action-adventure-RPG-Souls-like debuted at the tail end of the year with the deck stacked against it in some ways.Ī44’s-and presumably Microsoft’s-decision to release Ashen during The Game Awards could be perceived as a bad move. After all, it’s been in development for years, and has made several appearances at E3. Some may disagree with Ashen being classified as an overlooked game.

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