Skydance's Behemoth takes the Saints & Sinners team from zombies to giants

The team at Skydance Games last explored the realm of virtual reality by visiting the world of The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners stands as one of the best VR titles on the market today, challenging players to survive hordes of enemies through satisfying and visceral combat. That development team has returned, but its latest project is something a little different. Players are going from one dystopia to another type of dystopia, heading to a frigid climate with Skydance's Behemoth. Shacknews recently had the opportunity to take a first look.

Skydance's Behemoth is the Saints & Sinners team exploring an all-new original IP. Unlike the team's work on The Walking Dead, this new game is more of a straightforward action-adventure title. It involves less of dealing with hordes of the undead and more dealing with towering creatures, similar to a game like Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus. The story follows a hunter named Wren, a denizen of the Outlands. The Forsaken Lands have been afflicted by a condition known as the Rot, which has wiped out thousands, including everyone in Wren's village. Wren has set out to slay the world's Behemoths, in hopes that slaying them will lift the curse of the Rot forever.

Players begin by exploring the frozen tundra of the Forsaken Lands, but their journey will take them across three other biomes. Each houses a powerful Behemoth, but that won't be all that faces Wren. Angry human foes see Wren as an outsider and meet him with hostility, leading to a lot of the game's melee combat. When fighting hand-to-hand, enemies can match Wren's abilities. Success involves finding openings, blocking and parrying at the right time, and striking swiftly. Wren can use his bow to shoot arrows, potentially picking enemies off from a distance. Some foes can also shoot arrows, so players will have to dodge those, but those with extremely quick reflexes with catch enemy arrows in flight and throw them back.

Wren's greatest tool is the grappling hook. It's often used for traversal, helping him reach higher areas or bring down objects like a drawbridge. It can be used for quick ziplines or it can be used to control Wren's descent from high places, preventing fall damage. It can also be used for combat. Keen-eyed fighters can spot opportunities for an environmental kill, using the grappling hook to rain down objects on enemies. As the game goes on, players can upgrade the grappling hook and give it the ability to hook enemy weapons from a distance.

Exploration is another key aspect of Skydance's Behemoth. While the demo area shown to us is not expected to be the final product, it showed the breadth of what players can expect to see. Skydance Games is building extensive vistas with breathtaking views that take full advantage of the VR platform. Players will climb objects with their hands, mantle over smaller gaps with a single hand, and make full use of the grappling hook along their left wrist. The wide linear design paves the way for eventual encounters with the titular Behemoths.

The one Behemoth fight we were witness to featured a towering beast wielding a ball and chain. The Behemoth has several grappling points, which can help players get on its back or climb along its sides. It's possible to hang on, but there's a stamina system in place, so Wren can't stay latched onto the beast for very long. The idea is to find the creature's weak points, but finishing the fight won't be easy.

While there are a lot of fights with human foes, the main draw of Skydance's Behemoth will be its boss fights. The game's Behemoths will each have different weaknesses and attack patterns, but all of the creatures will be Godzilla-sized, pointing to some epic encounters. The dev team is estimating a 12-hour campaign, but if that's not enough, the game will also feature a secondary Arena side mode where players can practice their combat against the game's human foes endlessly.

Skydance Games has already proven to excel at designing VR games with The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. Skydance's Behemoth is promising a different kind of experience, but one that looks to maintain what made the team's previous efforts worth playing. Look for Skydance's Behemoth to release on PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest, and Steam VR this fall.

This preview is based on a PSVR2 demo from Skydance Games at the studio's HQ in Santa Monica, CA. It may not be representative of the final product.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?