Announced today at a Realms Deep online event, Graven is the spiritual successor to the Hexen games, but promises a much deeper experience than its predecessor. Graven is like Hexen 3," 3D Realms chief Frederik Schreiber told me at a recent preview session. If 1998 were now, this is the game Raven Software might have made in 1998.

Schreiber describes Graven as "an action-adventure-puzzle with RPG elements here and there: quests, spells, and upgrades. It certainly looks like an RPG at first: you are an Orthodox priest, convicted of a crime you didn't commit, and thrown into the middle of a heretical conspiracy. When you wake up, you find yourself in a dense, dark swamp, and after a boat ride, you eventually reach a city, where the adventure begins.

After wandering around and breaking something on the docks, Schreiber takes you to the client of the game's first quest, and it is here that Graven begins to prove that it is not an RPG, despite its appearance. There are quests to complete, but your real job is to shoot, whack, and hack creepy monsters.

A variety of ranged and melee weapons are at your disposal. My preview featured an auto-firing crossbow and a greatsword. You will also wield wands and spellbooks, but unlike weapons, these cannot be dropped or replaced. Interestingly, although magic is a central element of the game, according to Schreiber, it is more of a "strategic" tool and not meant to provide offensive firepower.

"[Spells] do some damage, but if you just want to do damage, you're better off using weapons," he explains. For example, an "Enflame" spell can melt things, or a "Discharge" spell can electrify or stun.

Spells also take advantage of some of Graven's more complex underlying systems, allowing for emergent interactions of a kind that were simply not possible in the days of the original Hexen.

"Late in the game, the lightning spell Discharge can also be used to magnetize igneous rock.

It is up to the player to discover most of these possibilities, and here lies the "puzzler" aspect of Graven: the developers want to help the player enough to lead them down the right path, but leave the rest to their own judgment. This is also true of the game world itself, much of which is hidden from players who do not take the time to explore.

Schreiber and Queener cite Symphony of the Night, Grim Dawn, Stalker, and Dark Souls, not to mention Hexen, as surprising influences on Graven, but Queener emphasizes that it is not a work like Souls. At the same time, 3D Realms aims to be as "faithful" as possible to its "Graven" roots, which means sticking to a limited color palette and "very strict rules" regarding textures and triangles, Schreiber told me.

But in everything else, they take the exact opposite approach: while "Graven" may look like a relic, the goal is to make it feel like a very modern game. [17] [18] "The idea is, what if we were back in '97, '98, and we had another 22 or 23 years' worth of game design innovation and knowledge in our backpacks, and we were to create a new game using the technology from back then? We're doing a lot of the same things we did back then, but with more detail," Schreiber said.

"That's our philosophy: you don't have to think about CPUs or 3Dfx cards.

"In terms of openness, in terms of how big we can make levels, enemies, mechanics, etc., we're going to make it as big as we can.

Graven is slated for release in 2021. Below is the first 30 minutes of gameplay from the publisher: [4