So much for Infinity Blade being the go-to game for chest-beating hardcore gamers on iPhone and iPad. Infinity Blade 2, coming December 1, looks like it's going to trump it. As a sequel should, right?
Announced at Apple's big iPhone 4S keynote today, the new game will run on Unreal Engine 3 and be made by Chair Entertainment, just like the last one. But this game, Epic and Chair, promise in a press release, will "build upon the addictive gameplay and breathtaking visuals of the original game" will include dozens of areas in an "evolving world."
The first game, and presumably the second, was a third-person medieval combat game that let players march into a castle to take on a crew of mighty warrior and beasts, one at a time. Gameplay was on rails, advancing the player automatically until the next combat point, where control would switch to close-quarters attacking and dodging, all controlled with swipes of the finger. The surprisingly deep game let players upgrade and change armor, collect treasure, and, most importantly, run through the quest again and again, testing new branched pathways and gaining power each time.
4S-Only? You won't need to be on the cutting edge to play Infinity Blade 2. Even though the game was revealed at Apple's big iPhone 4S event today, the game will actually run on iPhones as old as the 3GS model and any iPad.
Chair says the new game will include "new fighting styles and weapon classes with deep role-playing elements."
For those with multiple Apple devices that can run the new OS5 firmware, players will be able to sync their saves and profiles to multiple devices wirelessly through iCloud.
The first Infinity Blade was primarily viewed as a single-player game, but the new one is designed to feel more social, introducing "new online features." One, called Clash Mob, lets players collectively attack "massively social challenges to unlock rare weapons and exclusive items." That sounds like players will be rewarded for, as a population, scoring X number of kills or securing Y amount of treasure, but we don't have many details about how it'll exactly work.
No price was announced for the game. The game will run on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, from 3GS and up, just like the original game.