Gearbox’s publishing arm is on a roll, with not just Risk of Rain 2 under their helm but also an upcoming action RPG melee-focused title called Godfall. Imagine if the Diablo series took some heavy metal van art, cranked up the saturations and exposure levels, and became third-person Dark Souls-like with its combat: that is Godfall in a nutshell. The loot is plentiful, but so is the combat and challenges.

Thanks to a number of PlayStation blog posts and the folks at ResetEra, here are a few GIFs and weapon explanations to talk about what makes this one unique from the other hack and slash games out this year. Let’s break it down!

Combat Terms

In Godfall, you need to exploit enemy weaknesses in melee combat using these techniques.

• Polarity attacks: A buff that’s given when you switch weapon mid-combat.
• Breach: You need this attack to break through the armour of bigger enemies. To do this, you need to follow up heavy attacks with faster moves.
• Soulshatter: A type of attack that “overkills” an enemy. Soulshatter is performed by using a heavy attack when your “remaining banked-in damage” is greater than your target’s remaining health; like dealing 2K damage to an enemy with 10 hitpoints left.
• Weakpoints: After an enemy attacks, there will be a red dot displayed on their bodies. That’s when you line your own reticule up; when it’s yellow, that’s when you strike for maximum damage.

Gear Buffs

We’ll just lift the official Godfall explanation regarding the loot’s relationship with the aforementioned attack types.

“Similar to Weakpoints and Soulshatter, Polarity Attacks are tied to loot effects. A simple example is increasing the damage for the shockwave or increasing the charge rate. Some examples of exotic loot traits you may find include inflicting an ailment whenever you use your Polarity Attack or applying a debuff on enemies hit by the shockwave.”

In other words, your loot might affect each of your core skills and attack types bit by bit. We do hope that the higher tiers of loot, purple and gold legendaries, offer perks and out-there unique bonuses ala Borderlands.

Warhammer

Slow, powerful, and built for crowd control. Also highlights the game’s reticule-aiming mechanic. If you line up your own reticle to that of the red dot on the enemy, it’ll turn yellow which means you can pull off the weakpoint exploitation attack. If this is done, you’ll perform an energy-discharging slam that deals further AoE.

Polearm

Polearms have longer range and are better at dealing with singular targets because of how thin they are. You can also toss it as a long-ranged attack to pick off foes from afar. The polearm also has its own AoE attack, but it’s more of an ambush move than a crowd control tool.

Longsword

The balanced weapon archetype. Deals good damage, has decent range, and is perfect for beginners. Default moves include a flurry and a spiral thrust ala Dante’s Stinger attack from Devil May Cry.

Greatsword

If you want power and precision, the greatsword is your weapon. It combines the strengths of the Warhammer and longsword, but has its own unique mechanic: it has a breach gauge. Filling this up to full will allow you to break through blocks and enemy defenses quicker.

Dual Blades

Dual blades are best against low HP enemies. They deal damage fast and have faster attack recovery animations. Plus, you can exploit weakpoints quicker as they’re intended for fast assassination strikes. Of course, its range is abysmal when compared to the rest of the weapons.

Shields

Usually paired with a longsword, though you can pair it with the other weapons on this list somewhat. The shield has its own variety of abilities like a Captain America-esque throw, a Captain America “Charging Star” flat bash, and a shield ground slam.

Can’t Pick One? No Worries; Use Two Instead

Like we alluded to earlier, you can have two weapons in your loadout, and you can switch between them mid-combat. As a bonus, when your polarity gauge is full, switching boosts weapon damage by 20% for 30 seconds. As you can see above, the hammer-to-polearm switch is devastating.

Boss Fight

You’ll need all the weapon knowledge you can get, because boss fights like the ones above will be plentiful. We can’t wait for this game to come out this month, 10th November for the PC (Epic Games) and PS5. Stay tuned to Kakuchopurei for our review & guides for this shiny-as-heck game.