Players can get ready to storm the castle with the release of Berzerk Studio and The Arcade Crew’s old school adventure platformer Infernax. Gamers Heroes recently got a chance to take the reins of the young duke Alcedor for a short while – see what’s to come with our preview.
Infernax Preview
Things start to go a little wild once a book with great power is brought back. From there, the land is filled with countless skeletons, zombies, monsters, and other things that go bump in the night. With the odds stacked against you, it’s up to players as the heroic Alcedor to take a stand and fight like his life depends on it.
However, this hero starts things out with some humble roots. A lowly level one hero with a basic iron mace and rusted mail, it’s up to players to make use of what they’ve got in this MetroidVania. As players take down foes, they’ll be able to collect gold and gain experience. A number of shrines dot the landscape, allowing players to save, heal, and use their XP as currency to upgrade power, life, and magic. Enemies drop a healthy amount of XP and money, and those looking to grind can party like it’s 1989 and go back to certain enemies that respawn foes.
In true MetroidVania fashion, the world of Infernax is a sprawling one that features different ways to go. It’s not just the keys that will unlock certain areas; there were multiple unreachable areas with unbreakable blocks and platforms just outside our jumping height. We look forward to seeing how Alcedor will grow in the full release.
Combat is fairly straightforward, with a healthy emphasis on timing and pattern recognition. No need to worry about multi-button combos – rather, one’s main attack button and the odd use of magic will get the job done. The boss, miniboss, and even foes we encountered required a fair amount of finesse to overcome – getting into a DPS war will lead to an absolutely disastrous end. Those that grew up on titles like the original Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden trilogies on the Nintendo Entertainment System will take like a duck to water with Infernax’s system.
While it should be worth noting that the title is still in development, we encountered some bugs with our playthrough. We ended up dying to one of the later foes, which forced our game to crash and start things anew – quite the endeavor. This might be ironed out in the final release, but when considering how there’s a Hardcore Mode that kicks players to the last save point with all progress lost, it can sting worse than a spear to the face.
A nice blend of RPGs, platformers, and MetroidVanias, the current build of Infernax is hitting all the right notes for fans of these genres.
The game will come out in Q1 2022 – all those interested can add the game to their Steam wishlist here.
This preview of Infernax was done on the PC. A digital code was provided by the publisher.