Michal Ždanský Chair Entertainment/Epic Games are regular guests at Apple keynotes. No wonder their Infinity Blade series of games, built on Unreal Engine 3, which is available for iOS and third-party game developers, has always set a new bar for mobile gaming. If Apple has its way Halo or Uncharted, then it is Infinity Blade that always demonstrates the performance of iOS devices and is exclusive to this platform.
Infinity Blade was also a commercial success, grossing its creators over 2010 million since 60 and selling 11 million. Few game studios can boast of this result, except perhaps Rovio and a few others. After all, Epic Games has made it clear that Infinity Blade is their highest-grossing series in the company's history. Now, at Apple's latest keynote, Chair Entertainment has unveiled a third installment that's better than anything we've seen so far. It's technically the fourth Infinity Blade game, but an RPG spinoff with a subtitle Dungeons it never saw the light of day and may never come out.
The third part throws us into the open world for the first time. The previous parts were strongly linear. Infinity Blade III is eight times larger than the previous installment, and in it we will be able to travel between eight castles at will, always returning to our sanctuary from where we will plan further journeys. The main characters are still Siris and Isa, who we know from previous episodes. They are on the run from a menacing ruler named Deathless and try to assemble a group of comrades to stop the tyrant Worker of Secrets. It is the companions that will play a big role in this continuation of the series.
The player can have up to four companions, each with unique abilities and professions – merchant, blacksmith or even alchemist – and can provide players with upgrades and new items. For example, an alchemist can mix ingredients collected during the game into potions to replenish health and mana. The blacksmith, on the other hand, can improve weapons and resources by as little as one level (each weapon will have ten possible levels). When you master a weapon and get the maximum amount of experience for it, a skill point will be unlocked that will allow you to further improve the weapon.
The main characters, Siris and Isa, are both playable and each can choose from three unique fighting styles and 135 unique weapons and items, including specialized weapons. These six fighting styles include special grabs and combos that can be upgraded over time.
A lot has changed in combat as well. Not only will there be new unique enemies of huge proportions (see the dragon in the keynote), but the combat will be much more dynamic. For example, if an enemy comes at you with a staff that breaks mid-fight, they will completely change their fighting style and try to use both halves of the staff against you, one in each hand. Opponents will also use thrown objects and the surrounding environment. For example, a giant troll can break off a piece of a pillar and use it as a weapon.
In terms of graphics, Infinity Blade III is the best you will see on a mobile device, the game makes full use of the Unreal Engine, Chair even tasked a small group of software engineers with the task of finding everything that could be improved graphically within the engine compared to the previous installment and do so. Infinity Blade also demonstrated the power of Apple's new A7 chipset, which is 64-bit for the first time in history, so it can process and render more things at once. This can be seen especially in the various lighting effects and elaborate details of the enemies. The dragon fight that Chair showed at the keynote itself looked like a pre-rendered part of the game, even though it was real-time rendered gameplay.
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A lot has changed in the multiplayer mode as well. The old Clash Mobs will be available, where players will fight together against monsters in a limited time. The new mode that we will see in the game is called Trial Pits, where the player gradually fights monsters until his death and is rewarded with medals. The multiplayer part is where you compete with your friends for scores, being notified that someone else has beaten yours. The last mode is Aegis Tournaments, where players will fight against each other and advance in the global ranking. Chair will even reward players at the top of the leaderboard.
Infinity Blade III is out on September 18th, along with iOS 7. Of course, the game will also run on devices older than the iPhone 5s, but will require at least an iPhone 4 or iPad 2/iPad mini. It can be expected that the price will not change, Infinity Blade 3 will cost €5,99 like the previous parts.
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It will be released on September 18th.