$5 DLC releasing on September 13

Nobody Saves the World was a fun Game Pass romp from Guacamelee's Drinkbox Studios, and it's getting a bit bigger with the upcoming Frozen Hearth DLC. The best part of the game is completing combat challenges to power up? your different character forms and unlock new variations,?? and on that front, we're getting a killer bee and mechanic form.

//youtu.be/HUjnMN7aE9A

Once the $4.99 DLC launches on September 13, you'll be able to compete in The Tempering, "a series of puzzles and challenges that will push players' transformation skills and creativity." And after un??locking the mechanic and bee, the??y'll be usable in the base game. Speaking of which, I still need to finish my New Game+ run for the platinum trophy.

??Today's ?trailer also showcases mini-golf. Sure, why not?

"When we shipped the original game, there were so many ideas we had to leave on the cutting room floor, and this DLC gave us a chance to bring some of them to life," said lead designer ?Ian Campbell. The developers "had a blast creating even more forms."

[caption id="attachment_341889" align="alignnone" width="1920"] _{Ranking up every form is a big part of the game's appeal.}[/caption]

As you can see from this Frozen Hearth screensho?t, the mechanic and killer bee are their own offshoot from Nobody, and they ca?use blunt and sharp damage, respectively.

I liked Nobody Saves the World quite a bit �en?ough to want to get some modestly-priced DLC. I?t's one of those games you can point to when talking about how fun grinding can be, and as far as action-RPGs go, the scenario is pretty out-there. It's got that Drinkbox charm as well as outside-the-box character abilities, which funnel into inventive builds.

If nothing else, DLC or no DLC, I'd encourage you to look into the base game if you missed out the first time around �it's now widely available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Heck, there's even local co-op, too.

The post Nobody Saves the World gets kil??ler bee and mechanic forms with Frozen Hearth DL??C appeared first on Destructoid.

Current platforms are getting a co-op update, too

Did you know the developers behind Guacamelee made a wacky action-RPG that's �no surprise here �really cool? I love Drinkbox, and its latest release, Nobody Saves the World, is worth playing, especially if you're in the mood for a co-op adventure. After launching on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, Nobody Saves the World is coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS5 on April 14, 2022 �?along with local co-op support across the board.

//youtu.be/U8ljTOacBmU

As you might've gleaned from the trailer, this is a dungeon-crawling RPG with an overworld to explore, optional quests to complete, and a bunch of distinct forms for your "nobody" to morph into. One moment, you might be sliming?? up the terrain as a slug, raising an army of chomping undead as a zomb??ie, or charging into demons as a horse.

Having recently checked it out on Game Pass, my favorite part of Nobody Saves the World is the challenge system, which pushes you to play as every class in order ?to expand them and also unlock further forms. It's fun in an "always making progress" completionist sense, and it's pretty enjoyable to mix and match abilities to fit the given dungeon, too.

Though it's a nice podcast-and-grind experience, my big regret was not being able to team up locally, so knowing that a couch co-op update is coming to Xbox and PC is great news for anyone else in a similar boat. Those updates are expected to drop on April 14 (the same day as the Switch and PlayStation launch), so everyone's covered. Nobody Saves the World is fun, but?? I bet it's even better with a partner given the potential to combo abilities.

[caption id="attachment_315086" align="alignnone" width="1920"] _{The Magician can pull more than just a rabbit out of his hat.}[/caption]

This is absolutely one of those games where you go in intending to play for "just a bit," then all of a sudden you come to, realizing how much time has flown by. It's a day derailer! Even if top-down action-RPGs are a bit outside of your wheelhouse and you're mostly here for the ol' Drinkbox charm as, say, a fan of Guacamelee, I'd still check it out.

Nobody Saves the World is up on the Nintendo Switch eShop and PlayStation Store?, and the?re will be a 10 percent discount for pre-orders. Game Pass is swell if you have it.

The post Nobody Saves the World heads to Switch??, PS4, and PS5 with local co-op appeared first on Destructoid.

You're nobody 'til somebody cares

When I see a Drinkbox game, I turn my head to look at it: there's no question. Guacamelee has pretty much cemented my love for them, and every project they've released so far has had some sort of unique hook to it that helps it stand out from the crowd. Nobody Saves the World plugs in a few safe notions of mo??dern game design, but completely goes off the walls with it in a way that few game studios can truly muster.

Nobody Saves the World (PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X)
Developer: Drinkbox Studios
Publisher: Drinkbox Studios
Released: January 18, 2022
MSRP: $24.99 (also on Xbox Game Pass)

As far as a quick rundown goes: Nobody Saves the World is kind of a take on a top-down Zelda, plus a mix of random dungeon concepts that have come into the forefront in the last five years or so. You star as the literal Nobody, who doesn't have any latent powers (beyond a slow slapping animation). It's a setup you rarely see often �shoutout to Lester the Unlikely on the SNES �and even if Nobody gets a magical transformation?? ability early on, yo??u can still always go back to the Nobody slap-fight form.

You can see the bright Drinkbox pedigree as soon as the title screen. Nobody Saves the World injects a ton of personality into basical?ly every facet of its being. The animation is fantastic: like something straight out of a Cartoon Network show, with characters who have exaggerated, over-the-top emotive reactions. The transformation aspect is baked into basically everything too. Quests can involve turning into an authority figure to get out of a jam or talking to a different animal species as that species. Many of these quests are like puzzles, where you're expected to figure them out using a quick form change.

It's really satisfying, as ??Drinkbox has created a deliberately-designed map to facilitate all of this. So the micro-dungeons (demi-dungeons, using the game's terms) are randomized every time you enter them. But the big zones and the map itself are hand-crafted. It's a great way for Drinkbox to put their stamp on the game, as the whole "the entire game is random" motif doesn't always stick? the landing.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ0j5maNZJ0

Mechanically, Nobody Saves the World is also streamlined in a way that's expected of Drinkbox action. Tapping a crystal on the world map saves your progress in an instant, with a clear clue telling you it went through. Attack animations are s?wift and simple, allowing you to generally do what you want whenever you want instead of relying on lengthy choppy animations like some top-down action games. They also went the extra mile to ensure that a horse shooting a ranger bow �or a knight doing a horse kick �doesn't look too ridiculous as you start to mix and match powers.

Drinkbox's lengthy experience designing action is evident from the very first form change you unlock: the rat. You start off with a simple chomp ability, which can be aimed as you "moonwalk" backward and dodge enemy attacks. Almost immediately you'll get a "consume" power, which can [usually] instantly kill a foe after they've been chomped enough to apply a passive poison. As you continue through the game, you can grant that passive to another transformation (a Final Fantasy job, basically), as well as the other two abilities. It's easy to understand with a smal?l enough skill floor, but there are layers if you really wan??t to dig into combat.

Speaking of that skill ceiling: the big hook is how you can combine forms. Every dungeon requires some form of pivoting, thanks to the rock-paper-scissors system of sharp, blunt, dark, and light attacks breaking "wards" (shields) on specific enemies. Given that you can freely customize transformations, I was constantly strategizing as to what combos would benefit each job in turn as I was progressing through the map. I ended up settling on a few comfortable playstyles, ??like using the horse to gallop around the world map, th?e knight for bosses, the monk for dungeons, the slug for giant groups; the list goes on.

In the very first dungeon, you unlock two more forms (the melee-centric guard [knight] and the bow and arrow-based ranger), and those have their own quests. It's not only a?ddicting to clear all these quests, but it also incentivizes players to try other transformations and at least attempt to unlock some early bonuses that spill over into other forms. One class is literally "an egg," and your main questline is to warm yourself up through five different giant birds across the map to unlock a new transformation. The egg has passive and active abilities. It's not afraid to get weird, yet functional! You start to notice things like the magician being suited for escort quests, as they can summon distractions and stun enemies, or s??tart swapping between ranged and melee classes during specific boss fight phases.

Since quests also fuel the magic doors you need to open to progress in the game, it's a win-win. Drinkbox clearly thought through how much progress funnels into everything. The game's flow will turn some people off, to be sure. Your general goal is to clear quests (to unlock new forms and abilities), and conquer dungeons, as well as smaller demi-dungeons. The latter category is randomized, and a few bosses are reskins of other enemies. These two elements are really my only hangup with the game, as bosses are often the best reward for fine-tuning that perfect build you created �but if t??hey operate really close to the enemies you've been fighting the entire?? time, you don't need to adjust that much.

It's the kind of thing where the foundation is so effortlessly refined, where I'd hope for a sequel to help cement a more varied delivery system for it. The silver lining is that there are so many quests that there's more than enough options for earning the stars needed to unlock those dungeons. In most games, gating dungeons is an absolute chore and is often a cheap way to withhold progress. But here in Nobody Saves the World, since fo?rm quests, sidequests, and main quests all grant stars, it's a lot less demanding.

Nobody Saves the World is around 12 hours if you just do the critical path dungeons that lead to the end; more if you go for sidequests and explore at your leisure. Full online co-op is also an option, as well as a New Game+ mode when you're done. It's pretty much all Drinkbox needed to a?dd to keep things interesting beyond the first clear �you can go back into the randomized areas with a friend and have it feel relatively fresh.

I was a bit skeptical about Nobody Saves the World pulling off everything it tried to do, but it won me over very quickly. While the main questline lacks some meat on the bones at ??times, a lot of people will barely notice it as they unlock new transformations and start to mix and match old ones.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Nobody Saves The World appeared first on Destructoid.

It's also a day-one launch on Xbox Game Pass

The latest game from Drinkbox Studios has a release date, and it's right around the corner. Nobody Saves the World will arrive on Jan. ??18 for Xbox and PC, and it's launching on Xbox Game Pass too.

The newest action RPG from Drinkbox, the studio behind Guacamelee! and Severed, ?takes the develo?per's penchant for outlandish, quirky characters into a top-down dungeon crawl. Starting off as a Nobody, you can pick up new forms like Rat, Ghost, Rogue, and Dragon to gain new mechanics and abilities. Plus, you can also mix and match abilities to create even more new builds.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ0j5maNZJ0

All the forms have their own storylines as we??ll, so you can help out ?the nice denizens of the world and chase your own form-based dreams. Online co-op is included too, so a friend can join in on the action.

Drinkbox also confirmed in a press release that Nobody Saves the World will launch on Xbox Game Pass, and it will also be cross-play enabled. So it really shouldn't be too difficult for wayward Nobody adventurers to find a pal to trek with through adventures and quests?.

Our hands-on with Nobody Saves the World left an impression, with Chris saying the core loop was very satisfying. Drinkbox is certainly no stranger to the action or RPG genre, with both the Guacamelee! series and the memorable touch-based dungeon-crawler Severed on its resume.

If you were looking for a new game to play with a pal this month and you both have Xbox Game Pass, seems like this one's a lock. Nobody Saves the World hits Xbox One, Xbox Se??ries X|S, and PC via Steam and Windows 10 on Jan. 18, 2022.

The post Drinkbox’s Nobody Saves the World arrives later this month appeared first on Destructoid.

Add to that backlog

The Xbox Game Pass library has ?been great f??or accumulating access to a lot of games I need to get around to playing, and it's adding even more to the list.

At today's Twitch Gaming and ID@Xbox showca?se, over 20 games ??were confirmed for Game Pass at launch. This means they'll launch day one on the service, so if you're eagerly awaiting a bunch of these, that's an easy way to nab them all in one fell swoop.

It's an eclectic group of indie games too, ranging from newly announced games from the showcase like Astria Ascending, while others are previously announced indies like Sable or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

Check out the full lis?t below, as well as which platforms they're coming to ??Game Pass on:

• Art of the Rally (Console, Cloud)
• Astria Ascending (Console, Cloud)
• Backbone (Console, Cloud)
• Boyfriend Dungeon (Console, PC)
• Craftopia (Console, PC)
• Dead Static Drive (Console, PC)
• Edge of Eternity (Console, Cloud)
• Hello Neighbor 2 (Console, Cloud)
• Library of Ruina (Console, Cloud)
• Little Witch in the Woods (Console, Cloud)
• Moonglow Bay (Console, Cloud)
• Narita Boy (Console, Cloud)
• Nobody Saves the World (Console, Cloud)
• Omno (Console, Cloud)
• Recompile (PC, Console, Cloud)
• Sable (PC, Console)
• She Dreams Elsewhere (PC, Console)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 (Console, Cloud)
• The Ascent (Console, Cloud, PC)
• Undungeon (Console, Cloud, PC)
• Way to the Woods (Console, Cloud)
• Wild at Heart (Console)

Looks like if you're using Game Pass, you've got some indies coming your way. Be sure to check out our preview of Drinkbox's upcoming game Nobody Saves the World for a glimpse of one of them.

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We went hands-on with the studio's latest

Even since Tales from Space: About a Blob, Drinkbox Studios was one to watch for me.

But it was in 2013, when Guacamelee hit, that they kind of became a "must watch" developer. You know the feeling, like when Thatgamecompany released Journey, or Supergiant gave us Bastion.

We sat down with a few people from Drinkbox recently, and embarked upon a hands-on preview adventure with Nobody Saves the World, their newest game. Oh yeah, that's a thing!

During my hands-on, I had the chance to interact directly with studio co-founder Graham Smith and lead de?signer Ian Campbell, who noted that this was w??hat they've been working on "for the last year or two."

I started roughly 30 minutes into the game, eschewing the story setup and tutorials. Here's a quick primer: you're a littl??e "white baby thing" (their words!) called "Nobody." You woke up in a shack with no clothes or memories, and an ancient evil has wrecked the world. A master mage named Nostromagus typically cleans things up (and saves the world), but he's missing. His protégé, Randy, found you, and one thing leads to another; and you now have access to a powerful wand artifact.

The wand and the magic therein is the main gimmick both in terms of the game's narrative and the underlying mechanics. As you may have noticed in the screenshots so far, Nobody can become a lot of different things. Now you can wander around as the little white baby thing! But at the start you can also transform into a rat (melee DPS)?, a ranger (ranged DPS), and a magician (a summoner type). All of these forms can be swapped to at will, and ranked up (you start at rank "F").

All of this is taking place through an old school Zelda-like top-down action RPG framework. Drinkbox says there's "around 25 dungeons" to conquer, and the "insides are randomly generated," with unique elements for each one of them. You'll spelunk in "Demidungeons," then branch off into more formidable "Legendary Dungeons." This story is told through a self-described "hand-crafted overworld," that is "similar in size to old Zelda?? games." I'm told it will take roughly 15-20 hours to complete. Drinkbox is "still working on the nature of the postgame." At this time, it is "fully singleplayer."

To get stronger and aid the sense of progression, Nobody can also finish quests (which are more like challenges) to unlock new forms and upgrades. The core loop is very satisfying, and I found myself being surprised by it in real time. Essentially, while Drinkbox tells me that you can use the same few forms if you wish to great success, you're encouraged to swap constantly, finish new challenges, and unlock more abilities and rewards. You can also combine abilities across classes?, and mix and match your style (one example was granting the ranger's dash to someone else).

But how did this all come about? Smith says it was a "biproduct of how [they] select [their] projects." He elucidates: "We have single page pitches of 'here's a game idea.' For this project, everyo??ne in the team pitched one or two ideas. We sat in a big circle and just pitched ideas all day. Eventually we narrowed it down to a couple of different projects, including this one. Ideas are being thrown around for how to change pitches. So the original pitch is maybe something different, but pulling in ideas from other pitches is something that happens regularly."

Smith goes on to explain, "We were working on three projects, mostly on paper, but eventually it kind of whittle down and this is the one we ended up making. The team likes to work on new things and work in new areas. We had never done a 'proper RPG,' and it's stretching our creative muscles in different ways. Severed was very much the same...we?? wanted to do something different."

The art direction for Nobody Saves the World is very much "something different." Campbell dove right in to acknowledge the notion that it was all gloriously unsettling, stating that "Unsettling is one of the primary words we're using in the art direction. We're trying to maintain the vivid colors from our other games. We're also looking to differentiate this game. It's definitely more grounded. There's much less memes for example. A lot of those jokes from Guacamelee would come in at t??he end of the project, anyway."

Nobody Saves the World will launch later this year on PC (Windows Store, Steam), and Xbox One/Series X/S. Drinkbox says that it is "n??earing the internal beta period," and ??is targeting "around the end of summer for launch." It is just a target, Smith says, and they aren't going to release the game until "they're happy with it."

Of course I had to sneak a cheeky Guacamelee question in. When asked about another sequel, Smith explained that "Guacamelee 3 is not off the table, but there are no plans" righ??t now. So you're saying there's a chance?

The post Drinkbox’s new game, Nobody Saves the World, has flashes of Zelda meets Hades appeared first on Destructoid.