If my two-hour demo with Flintlock: Siege of Dawn has taught me anything, it's that more soulslikes should offer Sniper Elite-style killcams. Crouching at the bottom of a rickety set of stairs, I pop the head of an unassuming NPC with the help of my musket and a gratifyingly slow-motion killcam. A new avenue available to me, I continue my runback towards the boss that defeated me - only to eventually fall short of the 7,000 souls I dropped last time when I fumble a simple dodge against a generic enemy.
While that specific fate has been plaguing soulslike fans since the days of Demon Souls, Flintlock: Siege of Dawn is prepared to be a little less punishing than the games that helped inspire it. Billed as a Souls-lite, it weaves a collection of toys and some uncommon design philosophies into the formula, all of which are intended to make your fight against the forces of the gods a little more 'power-fantasy' and a little less 'Prepare to Die'. According to creative director Simon Dasan, that accessibility was built out of Flintlock developer A44's previous game, co-op soulslike Ashen: "We had the idea of making this more accessible early on, but without alienating the rhythmic combat from Dark Souls."
