New Overlord Game Teased By Codemasters

[Conrad Zimmerman]

New Overlord Game Teased By Codemasters

"Evil always finds a way."

British publisher Codemasters has released a video today, teasing a new entry in the Overlord series. While the video primarily focuses on bringing people up to speed on the events of the games to date, it does state that the new title will feature not one, but four Overlords. Very brief flashes of gameplay show the four characters moving through an environment from a top-down perspective, indicating that the title will feature cooperative multiplayer instead of the single-player focus in prior games.

That's a big shift, and a curious one in light of the series' traditional gameplay focus on a combination of action and horde maintenance, in which players command a legion of differently talented minions to solve puzzles and overwhelm enemies. How these core elements might find their way into this new game design remains to be seen, but it would be a real shame if the minions are pushed to the wayside.

Tweets from Rhianna Pratchett, the fantasy author chiefly responsible for the writing in all prior Overlord games, suggest that she is likely to be involved in the new title as well.

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Another detail worth noting is that Codemasters, which has published all prior Overlord games, will also be acting as the developer for this new title, marking the fist entry to be developed in-house. The original Overlord and its sequel, Overlord II, were created by Triumph Games, while Overlord: Dark Legend and Overlord: Minions were handled by Climax Studios.

A larger announcement with more details regarding the game is scheduled for tomorrow, April 23.

Sources: Twitter [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1zV2pHqfRA]


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[Roofstone]

I like the two overlords on the left, the spear one and the female one. They look cool.

Well, what I can see of them. But I digress.

Seems like an odd gameplay change, from pikmin to diablo, sort off.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Story wise, it make sense that they will have four lords now given their singlar lord had fallen in the past (so that now if one of the lords fallen, they still got three). Gaming wise, they have gone multiplayer?

 

[martyrdrebel27]

kinda disappointed in the gameplay changes, overlord was under-appreciated classic.

 

[LaughingAtlas]

As much as I've liked sending my horde of bloodthirsty psychotics to do their thing in the first two games, I always wanted to be more of a hands-on Overlord anyway. Hands-on-your-throat, to be exact. Just having four Dark Masters running about breaking everything and killing everyone seems like a more straight-forward version of how those games went anyway, but with less of a pretense of the guy in the spiky hat actually being in charge.

Plus I really liked Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, so effectively just being the minions this time around sounds peachy.

 

[Alfador_VII]

OK, I'm interested, but I'm a bit nervous about the implications of 4 player co-op. I hope it still works in single player.

 

[Loop Stricken]

... CodeMasters still exists?

 

[JCAll]

If this is a free to play mobile game I will do dreadful things. Horrible awful terrible things.
Like a nasty e-mail or something. Because EVIL!

 

[PinkiePyro]

already excited I love the overlord games .... glad to see we are gonna get a proper third one (they made a DS one but its not the same)

 

[Smooth Operator]

I was so jazzed at the start of the trailer and then... surprise surprise they fucked it completely.
This top down co-op nonsense can only mean they are doing some MOBA shit, and this is about as Overlord related as pencils are to oranges.

 

[E the Weasel]

On the one hand, I'm excited for more Overlord. The first game was great, the expansion was okay, and Overlord 2 was...well, it was alright. And having 3 cool looking Overlords to choose from might be pretty cool (not a fan of Twin-Axe McGee, just from a looks standpoint anyhow.).

On the other hand, however, I can't help but worry that this will be as much an Overlord game as Nosgoth is a Legacy of Kain game. Take bits and flavoring from the setting, make a multiplayer only game out of it, and hope that nostalgia cash comes rolling in.

I Hope I'm wrong about that. Maybe that gameplay snippet we saw means they shifted from a 3rd-person action type game to a RTS style thing with 4 Overlords you have to manage like your Generals or Heroes or somesuch, that might be neat. But the part of me that's been watching other properties get gutted and stuffed into cash-grabs is making it hard to get too excited thus far. I would love to be proven wrong on this though.

 

[Denamic]

My hopes were raised and then immediately smashed. Top down? Could work, but I'd prefer the old third person for a more intimate experience. Multiplayer? Fuck that bullshit. Pass.

Captcha: downward slope
Indeed, captcha. Indeed.

 

[LostCrusader]

If this is a free to play mobile game I will do dreadful things. Horrible awful terrible things.
Like a nasty e-mail or something. Because EVIL!

Why hold back? We need to do something really dreadful like write them a letter!

OT: Like everyone else, I'm going to need to see how the drastically the gameplay changed before getting it.

 

[Neonsilver]

I'm not happy about the coop gameplay. In the other games you played the Overlord, you conquered or destroyed everything. It was a power fantasy. I don't think this kind of feeling can be generated by a coop game.

It looks on the screenshot like there are indicators of how many minions each player either has summoned or could summon in theory, but I think with 4 players it's going to be hard to keep track of your own minions. It wouldn't surprise me if they only allowed a small number of minions for each player.

Finally, I don't like the diablo look of the gameplay.

 

[NerAnima]

It looks more like Diablo than it does Overlord. I'll wait to see more, but until then, I remain cautious of this new spin. I'm not a huge fan of multiplayer most of the time, but perhaps they can convince me otherwise. Only time will tell if these four Dark Beings are worthy of the title of Overlord.

If they are not, then I shall feed them to the Salamander King; nothing tastes the same once you've had roasted Imposters.

 

[Kahani]

Holy crap, Terry Prachett's daughter wrote the Overlord games?

But yeah, as pretty much everyone else has pointed out, this doesn't really seem to have anything to do with Overlord. Evil lord taking over the world by controlling a horde of minions, compared to yet another top-down 4-player co-op thing that looks like either a Moba or Diablo depending on how you squint at it. I'm as opposed to taking franchises to other genres as some people seem to be, but the Overlord games actually did something unique, while Mobas and Diablo clones are fucking everywhere. If you are going to change the genre of your games, you either need to do something interesting and different, or do it spectacularly well. The previous games suggest they can be pretty good at the former, but not at all at the latter (the games were fun, but had some serious flaws).

 

[erbkaiser]

Overlord was good, Overlord 2 was fantastic and funny... but the minion control was never the best part. And now the entire sequel/spinoff is designed around it?

Multiplayer Diablo-esque... yeah. Not interested.

 

[Nurb]

Overlord 2 was great visually and funny, but ultimately shallow and hollow, this I'm even more unsure about.