Make way for a new retro-looking action RPG, folks. Moonlighter is here.
In just the past couple of years we’ve seen a definite influx of retro-style indie pixel art game — like Shovel Knight, Titan Souls, Stardew Valley, and Hyper Light Drifter, just to name a few.
It’s become almost a genre unto itself, and perhaps even serves as a way for gamers to return to their videogaming roots. With simple gameplay and controls, art reminiscent of NES or SNES games, and catchy, retro-inspired music, one would be hard pressed to play these games and not feel even a slight twinge of nostalgia.
One such game in the making is Moonlighter, an action-RPG being developed by Digital Sun Games. It’s currently seeking backers on Kickstarter, and has collected $22,037 of their $40,000 goal. The game will feature the player character, named Will, who is a shopkeeper in a small village. Will travels out into the world to fight monsters and other enemies, then returns to his store to sell loot in order to pay for combat upgrades.
Running Will’s shop is a major part of the game, and so Digital Sun coins the game as a rogue-lite action-RPG crossed with a management simulator. The game boasts a retro vibe with beautiful 2D pixel art graphics, although gameplay-wise Digital Sun Games assures us that the game is far from retro itself:
“We don’t picture Moonlighter as a retro game (actually, it is quite the opposite) but, at the same time, we can’t deny the influence of dozens of classic games. And we are proud of that!”
With Moonlighter possessing more than half of its required Kickstarter backer funds and rocking an official partnership with Square Enix, it looks like prospective players will be bringing Will on action-packed adventures in no time at all. Be sure to head over to the Kickstarter page itself and check out more about the game, directly from the developers!
