PUBG company Krafton, which has its hands in all kinds of games through various deals and subsidiaries, snuck a jumpscare into today's PlayStation State of Play live showcase. Krafton Montreal Studio announced open-world action RPG Project Windless, which seems to play like a Dynasty Warriors game but is in the neighborhood of Eastern fantasy works like Black Myth: Wukong, and all I can think about is its protagonist: a giant chicken man.
In a PlayStation Blog post, Krafton Montreal says Project Windless has been in the works "for years" already and is coming to PS5. It's set in the Korean fantasy novel series The Bird That Drinks Tears, and by bird, I gather they meant bird-man.
We are simply not getting around this. The image of bird-man swinging two swords through crowds of comparatively normal-looking soldiers is burned into my brain. There I was, cruising along another solid State of Play show, when chicken man came in with a yellow beak, white feathers, a red comb, and a slow-mo reveal.
It turns out these are called Rekons, humanoid bird warriors "known for their immense physical strength and size" as well as their fear of water.
"Instead of adapting the story you might know, we decided to go way back in time. We went over a thousand years before the events of the books and explored a turning point that the novels barely touch on," the studio explains.
As bird-man, you step into a war between myriad fantasy races and chew through soldiers in a "one-versus-many combat fantasy" that will look familiar to Musou fans.
"As a Rekon warrior, you often fight dozens (sometimes hundreds) of enemies at once. To be clear, these crowds aren’t just visual noise," the devs insist. "Brought to life through innovative mass technology, they move, flank, surround, and react to your actions, turning every battle into a living, unpredictable spectacle."
We've seen far too little of this game to draw any real conclusions, but unconventional Eastern fantasy has yielded some great action RPGs already, so you can sign me up to learn more about bird-man's conquest.
