Warlock is a game that intrigues me, taking a different approach to telling a tale in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. Instead of turn-based battles, or even top-down action RPG battling, this goes much closer to try and translate it into an open world action game.
Kaatri is a Weapons Master so driven in her personal quest to find a lost loved one, that she strikes a bargain with an ancient power from another realm to further her quest. That witch queen is Tasha, and from the opening of the hands off demo – an expanded section from what was shown during Opening Night Live – it’s clear that she is trying to manipulate and seduce, to have Kaatri become her vessel and lackey.
That in turn, to me, makes Kaatri a more difficult and compromised character. Drawing on this dark and corrupting power, she would maybe be more of an anti-hero or even just a lesser evil to the one she’s railing against, not being an especially likeable character because of it.
Jeff Hattem, VP of Creative at Invoke said, “I guess we’re not trying to make her likeable. We’re trying to make her true or authentic to her character. I think she’s a very driven character, she’s very resilient. She’s pursuing her goal, with the utmost direct line, as much as she can, and she’s willing to go to great lengths to get to where she wants to go.
“She has a saying, ‘To hell’s with the cost.’ I think that’s relatable. Someone that’s super resilient and driven, and I think we all want to be like that.”
Having drawn a new ability from her patron, Kaatri is stood overlooking the town of Crickshank within Darkon. It might not have the name recognition of Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter or Icewind Dale, but that also makes it fertile ground for an original tale, the map spreading across Misty Fields, Shroudfall Gorge and far beyond – D&D doesn’t always have the most imaginative place names, but you do know what you’re getting.
“It’s not a place that D&D goes to a lot, so we’re kind of excited to go to a corner that is less exploited, I think,” Jeff told us. He also noted the likes of Ravenloft and the Domains of Dread as inspirations that they’re drawing on for the overall narrative.
Wandering down into the town, there’s muttered suspicion and distrust of you, but plenty who are still willing to work with you. Kaatri can upgrade her weapons at a blacksmith, or toss a coin to a beggar for a hint of what’s happening in the town – a side quest, which Invoke have branded as Mysteries, and one which the demo investigates as Kaatri hunts for sources of raw magic to grab.
Invoke immediately start to show off some of the magical flexibility available to Kaatri. Using telekinesis, she can grab a lantern to throw at and set fire to a bramble, and then grab a ball of water from a nearby puddle to douse it, but could have grabbed a blob of burning oil to make an impromptu fireball just as easily.
Following the beggar’s hint and bloody trails nearby, she uses telekinesis to move crates out of the way, to pull a lever to open a gate, and misty step to shift through a grate. Needing to descent down a stone pit, she could use a magically boosted jump for some of this, or summon Black Tentacle to grab onto some stone rubble and create an impromptu platform.
That translates to the combat as well. A handful of enemies in an adjoining room are quickly dispatched by Kaatri pulling a column down onto one of them, and then, with a Death Kiss homing in on her, using Fae Switch to trade places with another enemy just in the nick of time. There’s a healthy amount of slow motion while casting spells in combat, giving time to aim, to build up the power of an attack through multiple levels of an Eldritch Blast, and to take a second to consider the sequence of attacks and abilities you want to you.
Making a… tactical retreat from the Death Kiss, which will be a formidable enemy even for a powerful Warlock, Kaatri emerges into the open with a zombified ogre battling with soldiers in the distance. I doubt she really needs to, but this is where Kaatri breaks out some of her more powerful magics, performing a ritual on a summoned tablet, placing grubs in one corner, a severed eye in another, some kind of liquid in the third, and turning the sunny day into a miserable, foggy, rainy one.
Perfect for casting lightning spells which arc electricity between multiple enemies, before unleashing further magical combos as the weather clears. Levitating an enemy, Kaatri can keep them in place and then skewer them with someone else’s weapon, or she can lean into her Weapons Master expertise and rely on sword and shield to block, parry and take enemies down.
Out of a borderline morbid curiosity, I asked how far you could lean into purely melee combat as opposed to leaning on magic. Jeff replied “So I think you get a good part of the way through by being a Weapons Master and really owning it. She’s not going to brute force as a character, she’s very knowledgable with various weapons. [But] you will definitely forego great advantages that magic can bring you when you’re throwing down with monsters.
“But it depends, like, I don’t know how good you are! You can do a lot of damage just with melee weapons.”
It builds up to the battle with the Ogre, using Black Tentacles to grab him when he strikes the ground with its giant club, immobilising him so you can send sword after sword piercing through its shoulder – a spot that’s shrouded in the glow of raw magics which Kaatri desires.
There’s plenty still to discover and see about Warlock as Invoke gets closer to release, showing the breadth of the world that you can explore and some of the bigger and broader quests that Kaatri will take on. It’s the epitome of a vertical slice, looking to showcase a game’s core ideas, and we want to see more.
