Towerborne could be a fun co-op brawler experience, but I'm not sure about its free-to-play live service model - Preview

Xbox has shown or demoed several of its upcoming games surrounding the festivities at Gamescom, including high-profile titles such as Obsidian's Avowed, Machine Game's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, as well as upcoming DLC for Bethesda's Starfield and Blizzard's Diablo IV. However, one smaller Xbox game also present during the event is Towerborne, an upcoming side-scrolling hack-and-slash from the development team at Stoic (The Banner Saga).

When Towerborne was announced last year, I was intrigued. I imagined it could be an enjoyable co-op experience similar to Castle Crashers or the classic TMNT sidescrollers; something quick and easy to pick-up-and-play with friends. The original announcement discussed how the game was going to have "seasonal" content, although it wasn't quite clear at the time what form this would take.

During Gamescom, Stoic revealed launch plans for the game, which start with an Early Access period on Steam beginning on September 10. Additionally, the game was revealed to be a free-to-play title, at least, once it leaves Early Access. For those interested in playing the Early Access version, it sounds like you will need to buy a Founders' Pack (more information can be found on the game's Steam page). It's a little bit unexpected to see the game's launch structure, both in pricing and content, be revealed this way. Personally, it raises concerns about how this game will be handled during and after launch.

As for the combat gameplay itself during the demo, it was about what I expected. At the Xbox preview event in Los Angeles, we played a single level of the game, and four different weapons were available to choose from: sword-&-shield, gauntlets, war club, and dual daggers.

In Towerborne, your weapon selection is what determines your effective 'class', which are called Aces. Sword-&-shield is the tank of the group, coming with an inherent armor gauge that prevents HP damage as long as some of the armor gauge is filled. Gauntlets is a much more nimble but more vulnerable Ace, dealing a higher level of DPS overall but cannot take as many hits. The War-club Ace dishes out damage with slow but powerful attacks, all while maintaining a 'superarmor' stance that prevents attack animations of getting interrupted - at least not as easily. In the limited demo time, I did not have a chance to check out the Dual Daggers Ace.

Each Ace can bring two active skills into combat that work on a pip system (fill up skill pips as you dish and deal damage), as well as a third skill that is tied to a Navi-like familiar of your choosing. While Stoic promises numerous skills available, as well as a variety of familiars in the game, unfortunately, the demo I played did not show anything outside of combat, such as skill selection, character customization, gear, the Belfry game hub, or level selection, so it's difficult to say much about character building potential or the overall structure of the game.

The demo level ended with a battle against a giant pangolin, called Pangojira. He primarily attacked with large swipes of claws in front of him, as well as with AoE jump-pound attacks. Throughout the battle, he summoned small minion pangolins which mostly served as a nuisance. The encounter felt right at home as other multiplayer brawlers I've played, as my co-op partner as I learned attack patterns and coordinated in taking out the boss and his goonsquad.

One thing the team at Stoic emphasized during my hands-on with the game is taking player feedback into account as the game releases into Early Access - something that was also evident in a lengthy blog post on Xbox Wire earlier in the week. I was told the team plans to be very receptive to feedback implementation, potentially taking only a few weeks to make adjustments rather than a few months. I was also told that the free-to-play monetization would come purely in the form of cosmetics - things like outfits and emotes - rather than anything that affects the balance or difficulty of the game.

While I think feedback can be crucially important to developers, and should be taken into consideration to a degree, a part of me is concerned that Stoic's plans for the game might not be locked-in as tightly as I would like. I almost felt like I was hearing more about feedback consideration than Stoic's vision itself.

Another concerning component of the demo I played relates to how gear may work. After I played the level, I saw that my character had maximum - level 30 - equipment pieces in each of the available armor slots. I politely asked a developer during the demo if they could explain how the equipment system worked, seeing that I could not actually check it out in the demo itself. They told me to ignore what I saw on the screen, because the gear system in the demo had already been completely overhauled to a loot-based system instead (Diablo was stated as a point of comparison). Regardless of how the eventual gear system turns out, having a demo less than a month before early access launch with an already-outdated gear system makes me wonder about the state of character progression.

The game's live-service nature would include new levels and new Ace weapons brought to the game regularly after launch, although this was not detailed in any substantial way. Optimistically, the game's F2P structure could work out great, with persistent new content to play over time with your friends in a quick-and-easy co-op session. But with so many details left vague, I am still uncertain about the game's monetization and structure, so I can't help but be a little hesitant about what Towerborne will shape up to be.

As it is, I want to like Towerborne conceptually, but I have concerns about how both the free-to-play components and live-service nature of the game will turn out. With an Early Access release coming out next month, we won't have long to wait to see the first reactions (and first adjustments) to this new IP.