‘Severed’ by Drinkbox Studios launches today on PlayStation Vita. Severed is a first-person RPG which tasks the player with swiping away at enemies to dive further into its dungeons. You play as a one-armed warrior, Sasha. Sasha is battling her way through a world filled with monsters, looking for her family. The slashing action mentioned before is done by using Vita’s touch controls and is done in quick methodical strokes. Randomly swiping at enemies will net you nothing but failure; success is granted to those making sure the enemy is not blocking where your fingers are headed. Using the same limbs and body parts cut from the monsters you battle, the player will create armor and special abilities will then be given to make the player more powerful thus making slashing easier or quicker. The walls around you are very colorful and have a very distinct make to them, you can tell this is a Drinkbox game. Music by award-winning band YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN featuring Pantayo also adds to the unique gameplay. Players will also be exploring these dungeons to find artifacts and clues to the location of Sasha’s family.
Drinkbox studios was founded in 2008, and is currently based out of Ontario, Canada. The team is surprisingly small with only about ten developers. It’s first big hit was Guacamelee, which received a 9.1 from IGN and a 9 from Gamespot.com. It also has an 81 on metacritic. Severed takes its art style from the same vein, but the actual gameplay is obviously a lot different. The same goes for the overall tone of the games as Severed represents a slightly serious tone. The team has high hopes for Severed and rightly so. The game has been talked about for two years, and has probably been in development for more time. If it succeeds it will be a hit the Vita needs if it’s fans want Playstation to keep supporting its handheld offering.
Severed was produced from the ground up specifically for the Vita and while it makes sense on mobile platforms like iOS and android Drinkbox commented on the subject on their website. Interviewing themselves Drinkbox asked “is severed coming to iOS/PC/Mac/my toaster?†And comically answered “no comment.†The game is practically made for touch but the time devotion and issues with performance might be the main reason Drinkbox wouldn’t port this game to other platforms. Meanwhile the Vita has an install basis of 13.7 million for software, the highest selling Vita game to date is Minecraft with 1.94 million (14% of the install basis). It will be intriguing to see if severed can still sell games on a system which is slowly dying down. If it does, Sony might throw some cash to the handheld, if it doesn’t all hope might be lost for Playstation. In a way Severed is a test to see if the Vita succeeds, and if Drinkbox has ,add another hit. For more information on Severed and on Playstation Vita check back to mousenjoypad.com.