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Scalebound Preview for Xbox One

Scalebound Preview for Xbox One

Scaled

E3 2014 marked the reveal of the first trailer for Platinum’s new Xbox One exclusive project Scalebound , but what is Scalebound ? Truth be told, we really don’t know. The only thing we got to see at the conference was a trailer and that’s about it, but that doesn’t stop us from analyzing it and trying to squeeze as much as possible from the two minutes of footage we saw.

The trailer starts by showing us a view of a planet that looks absolutely overrun by jungle. Somebody is running through the jungle at high speeds, trying to outrun a giant lumbering beast that is huge enough to fell trees as he runs. We get to see a close up of this character, a blonde haired man carrying a sword on his back, but wearing a modern day leather jacket and headphones and sporting some sort of funky magic rock arm.

Unfortunately, this man is not alone as there be dragons in this game! One of them swoops down from the sky and cuts off his escape. Now, caught between a rock and a hard place where the rock is a giant stone crab monster thing and the hard place is a terrifying dragon, the hero has to make a choice. “How am I going to be badass today?!”

Scalebound Screenshot

Platinum’s games always seem to have a bit of attitude to them and Scalebound seems to be no exception. The protagonist rolls out of the way, allowing the dragon to roast the crab with his fire breath. Perhaps this is alluding to the ability to get your prey to fight against each other in the game. The crab then pounces the dragon and is ready to take a bite out of his head, before our protagonist fires some sort of magic arrow, charged by his funky stone arm. It hits the crab right in the face, causing it to lose interest in the dragon and chase the protagonist again. Perhaps this is alluding to the game having some sort of spell or ability system. That would certainly set it apart from monster hunter which is pretty much all gear based.

Scalebound Screenshot

Unfortunately the dragon isn’t having any of it, and he pounces the huge rock crab (or maybe it’s more of a mantis… who knows?) once more. Deciding that he wants a piece of this, our hunter decides to dive right into the fray. He draws his sword and puts on his headphones, jumping into the air as his funky rock arm spreads over his body, becoming some sort of magic plated suit of armor. He pounces on them with a downward thrust. Our hope is that this means the game will let you climb on the sides of huge monsters, Shadow of the Colossus style.

After a brief title card, our hero dodges the huge mouth of a multi headed hydra that eats his prey before he could. That’s when it’s revealed that the dragon was on our side the whole time. Our protagonist climbs on the dragon’s back and takes to the air. Dragon riding as a mechanic? Awesome!

This scene actually shows several different types of dragons, each glowing different colors. There was a quick yellow aerial dragon, a beastlike red dragon, and more. It’s heavily alluded to that these dragons each have their own dragon riders, each with their own funky stone arms that are glowing the same color. Of course, this likely means we are going to see some sort of co-operative multiplayer, which certainly fits a giant monster hunting game.

Scalebound Screenshot

The trailer ends with the protagonist commanding his dragon mount to fire upon the hydra. The dragon fires a huge plume of green fire and that’s when the trailer ends. Honestly, all we could think of was Panzer Dragoon here, and if the final game does have some sort of aerial dragon combat, we would be that much happier.

As we said, there isn’t a whole lot of concrete info about Scalebound . However, what we have seen so far has us excited. It looks like some sort of magical Monster Hunter/Panzer Dragoon hybrid with attitude, and we can’t say no to that. We will bring you more information about Scalebound , including a release date, when it becomes available.

Game Features:

  • Ride a dragon!
  • Cast magic spells!
  • Wear awesome looking headphones!

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