I met with Pain developer Idol Minds who brought Project Ruin (temporary title) to E3. In the vein of Diablo and Dungeon Siege, Project Ruin is a loot collecting dungeon crawler.

My hands on started when a PlayStation 3 controller was passed to me. I was in control of a warrior walking through a temple of sorts. X was assigned to his basic attack. Square made the warrior spin around in a circle, perhaps the technique of choice to use while surrounded by monsters. Circle made the warrior dash with a shield rush and triangle was for smite, a ground pound move where the warrior jumps into the air and slams into enemies.

Some of these attacks consume mana, which was not implemented in the build. A developer explained this after he noticed I kept using smite even on small monsters. He stopped me after I battered up a larger beast and urged for me to try the regular attacks. I guess I didn’t hear him because I already killed the monster.

Minutes before, we saved Project Ruin and transferred the game via Crossplay to a nearby PlayStation Vita. I was in the exact same position, a room away from the monster fight. Project Ruin played the same on PS3 and the portable Vita, although touch screen controls may be added for the final release. One of the staff candidly said the graphics were "nearly" the same; some models use a lower polycount.

Since a save was made earlier, we reloaded Project Ruin on the PlayStation 3 a few steps away from the fight with the large monster.

This time I used regular attacks and triggered a God of War style finisher where the warrior brutally killed the creature in the way Kratos finished a Cyclops.

With a sudden influx of dungeon crawlers, Ruin has another feature to set it apart from the pack. We’ll discuss lairs and the game’s rival system next time.