At PAX East I got a look at Seven: The Days Long Gone, a new, story-driven, isometric RPG by IMGN.PRO and Fool’s Theory. In Seven you play Teriel, a young man whose skillset lends itself to thievery and sneakery. Teriel soon runs afoul of a bunch of cultists who subject him to a strange ritual, which causes the demon Artanak to be imprisoned within him. Artanak sends Teriel to Peh in the Vetrell Empire seeking… something. Given that it’s a demon looking for it, it can’t be good.
Sporting a very gritty post-Apocalyptic feel, Seven immediately caught me up with its open-ended approach to objective completion. This is not your bog-standard fight simulator, Seven comes with a very Thief-ly set of stealth tools, including using ambient light and weather to aid your character in his escapades. Slip into a location at night, or during a rainstorm, and you will find your path appropriately eased, with observers having reduced hearing and vision. Very cool, and combined with an extremely open world, with very few barriers and boundaries it allows for stealth-minded players to plan their forays to a very fine level of detail.
Using a system similar to parkour, Seven allows for things like climbing to a higher level, slipping past the guards on the ground floor, then silently lowering yourself to your goal, while circumventing the watchful guards. For those of us with a more combative bent, there is also a full suite of weapons and armors to choose from, and an array of combat maneuvers you can utilize to make your opponents cower in fear. Combat is very tactical, allowing players to utilize position to improve their chances in combat, looking for backstabs, strikes against unprotected flanks, and even elevation against their enemies.
The game also includes quite a few challenging roleplay encounters, giving players a wide variety of moral dilemmas and choices, and trying to make each choice impactful and consequential. After accidentally crossing into a forbidden area, my character was subjected to a severe beating and berating, one that served to teach me not to cross the technologist guards, or push them any further than I had.
