When watching a thrilling fight sequence in a film or performing it yourself in a high-octane action game like Devil May Cry or the upcoming indie Spine, it's not uncommon for critics to praise brilliantly executed examples as balletic or comparable to dance (in film, fights are also staged through choreography). But Tsarevna: Age of Tales from indie developer Watt Studio takes this idea and runs with it literally as a hack-and-slash action game that's actually inspired by real ballet.
According to Watt's founder and CEO, Egor Tomskiy, the initial concept was to make a game based on traditional Slavic mythology, which has certainly become very popular in games thanks to The Witcher, as well as a desire to feature a female protagonist. That resulted in looking at Russian fairy tales, and inspiration came from the most popular Russian fairy tale of them all, The Tsar Sultan by Alexander Pushkin, whose heroine happens to be the swan princess.
