If you too want to grow up to be, be an Absolver and punch faces in online multiplayer melee action, make a note: Sloclap’s Absolver [official site] will launch on August 29th. That’s the news from publishers Devolver Digital, who have also whipped together a trailer explaining how Absolver’s biffing and learned custom fighting styles work. It looks smashing. Adam called it one of his favourite games at E3 last June and yup, I want a go too. Check this out:



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This makes me smile a lot. I really dig the character designs, with their flowing cloth and weird masks. I like the style of the whole game, the balance between sketchy hard-edged shapes and intricate details. Watching characters fight is beautiful. And the way they fight, oh my!

As the video explains, players can create their own custom combos by chaining together moves (with alternatives) that are learned by fighting people. Each of the four directional stances has its own moves, and players get an extra defensive ability from their basic style – dodge, parry, or stand firm and heal on counterattacks.

It all looks great fun and I’m keen to create my own build. Having played years of Guild Wars and Magic: The Gathering, I really enjoy tinkering and testing small changes to hone a build as well as throwing wild ideas together to see what works.

If you fancy a crack sooner, signups for a beta test are over here.

[Disclosure: our own Alec Meer wrote some words for Absolver ages ago. I don’t know which words but statistically it’s likely they included “the”, “be,” “to”, “of”, and “and”.]