The First Berserker: Khazan preview — Voracious vengeance

We had an opportunity to take a first look at developer Neople’s upcoming hardcore action RPG, The First Berserker: Khazan. Taking up the mantle of revenge, I gained access to the first three areas of the game to explore, slay my enemies and share our thoughts with our audience.

Following the slaying of the Berserk Dragon, General Khazan faces a dire accusation: treason. Betrayed and thrust out by those he swore to protect, his days of fighting come to an end after he is marked as an outcast and the tendons in his arms severed. After making a pact with a mysterious phantom, Khazan cheats death by becoming an avatar of vengeance that seeks to unveil the conspiracy that led to his demise.

You wouldn’t be wrong to call The First Berserker: Khazan a soulslike, but it doesn’t exactly describe the game very neatly. You’ve got the staples like checkpoints that serve as your level-up locations, a hub zone where NPCs gather, estus-esque healing items and so on, but there’s also a lot of hack-and-slash DNA in this game. It reminds me of Lies of P in a way, where you can see inspiration in the grand scheme of things, but it does a lot to make a name for itself as well. 

There were three different weapon types I was able to experiment with:  a greatsword, a spear, and a sword-axe dual wield option. I spent most of my time with the last of those three, as it was a good combination of speed and damage (and was just super cool), whereas the other two lean harder into one direction. Sure this is a soulslike at heart, but it actually felt a lot more like Sekiro than a traditional souls game in the way that combat is focused on relentlessly striking at your enemies while matching their pace with parries. Combat also goes deeper than just spamming light attacks until they fall over, with charged heavy attacks, special moves that vary depending on your weapon type, and once again harkening back to Sekiro, risky but rewarding ways to counter unblockable attacks. 

The First Berserker: Khazan also features a lot of gear, complete with stats and set bonuses for you to try out new loadouts. Most of the time this was just gear with better stats, like more damage for a weapon or better defense for a helmet. What this meant was that I felt my inventory filling up quickly with various rarities of loot that was just ever so slightly better or worse than what I had on. I didn’t really see this as a strong point from my first look, however I was intrigued by the set bonuses which were similar to something you might see in Black Myth: Wukong. I enjoy armor that feels more like buildcrafting rather than a number going up, so I was happy to see this.

While the first two areas I got to explore in this first look were mostly-similar snowy forest zones, I thoroughly enjoyed the art style they were going for by the time I reached the third area. Character models are also fabulous, whether they are friendly NPC characters I met along the way or foes who dared to get in my way. One thing I found particularly interesting was how enemies visually take damage when you attack them, becoming bloodied and bearing wounds as you wear them down. It made the already punchy combat even more impactful, and added a lot to the immersion of brutal fights.

And truly brutal those fights will be. The enemies in this game are no joke, and you’ll definitely need to be prepared for some difficulty when starting this game up for the first time. Once you’ve spent some time learning your moves though, combat becomes this brilliant dance of clashing steel and splattering blood that becomes dangerously addicting. There was also a surprising amount of enemy variety in the small slice that I was able to play in, which is a good sign for the full release.

It’s not just the enemies that are dangerous though, as the bosses I fought against were absolutely vicious. You’ll be spending a lot of time up close and personal with them, learning their various attack patterns and finding an opening between their flurry of blows. It would usually take me a few attempts to get their patterns down, and just when I thought I had a boss figured out, they would always find a way to keep me on my toes with combo mixups. The boss might start off doing a combo you’re familiar with, but can swap to a totally different string of attacks, meaning you can’t get too comfortable with just learning the timings. You need to be actively engaged in every fight, and that was something I really enjoyed. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more boss designs when the game comes out and really honing my edge against some seriously challenging adversaries.

While my time with the game was short, I had an absolute blast shredding through my enemies on my path of revenge. Combat is stylish with a focus on parrying and staying in the fight to keep your enemies off balance, and I was always hungry to spill more blood. It’s a game that is so fun to play, but also extremely challenging. It’s a game where you can’t just walk over your enemies, you need to earn it and I respect that because when you finally overcome them, it is just so satisfying. If you’ve been a fan of the soulslike genre, there might be some things to get used to here but I think this is one you certainly need to keep your eyes on when the game releases early next year. 

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