The Event

Originally held in Brighton in 2012, EGX Rezzed was launched as a spin-off event (then simply called Rezzed) of the much bigger Eurogamer Expo held in London. Although it doesn’t have so many of the big “AAA” titles, there are still plenty of new and pre-release games to play, particularly those from indie games studios. The event also includes the opportunity to play and buy various tabletop games, a variety of games industry talks and presentations, and a selection of merchandise traders. Oh and a bar, because of course.

The Games

There were over 200 playable games this year, and while I certainly didn’t manage to play them all, I did get hands-on with quite a few, and thought I’d cover those that I’m most looking forward to or that otherwise stood out to me.

Beyond Blue

The surprise “game of the show” for me, this is an ocean exploration game similar in style to the Endless Ocean (Forever Blue in Japan) games on the Nintendo Wii.

Beyond Blue is inspired by the Blue Planet II TV show, and the publishers, E-Line Media are working in partnership with the BBC Studios to produce the game. E-Line Media previously produced the well received Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) in partnership with Upper One Games.

I really enjoyed the relaxing deep sea exploration of the Endless Ocean games, and have long hoped they’d get picked up for a new version on modern hardware. The story already feels familiar, and a play through of the demo at Rezzed confirmed it is just as enjoyable to play. Thankfully the creature identifying mechanic is more ‘scanning’ and less ‘rub them with the Wii pointer’. Beyond Blue already looks and sounds incredible, and first impressions suggest it is going to be essential for anyone fascinated by sea life.

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Nanotale: The Typing Chronicles

One of the games I was most excited to try at Rezzed this year. I was a huge fan of their previous game “Epistory: The Typing Chronicles“, which I played back in April 2017, and was very pleased to hear that it was receiving a spiritual sequel. Like Epistory, Nanotale is a really pretty and absorbing isometric RPG, with exploration and combat controlled by typing. Along with Beyond Blue, this is probably my most anticipated title at the moment.

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Sunless Skies

Sunless Skies is firmly in the realm of those games that can be said to be “Lovecraftian” and if you’ve heard me on the Lovecraft episode of the Maximum Power Up podcast, you’ll know I’m very much a fan of these games. This follow up to Sunless Seas will be instantly familiar to players of that game.

When I first heard about this follow up, I was originally turned off by the idea of flying trains. However, when I tried this at the event, those concerns were instantly forgotten the moment I left port. In retrospect, I’m pretty glad it wasn’t just zeppelins.

With just a demo to play, and the map still procedurally generated, I set off out into the murky distance to see how far I could go before something terrible happened or my crew ate each other. Fittingly I stumbled into an area called something along the lines of “Grey Wilderness” (this is definitely wrong, but I can’t remember what it was actually called) and lost a fight with a train that had tentacles coming out of the front. A chat with one of the writers afterwards revealed some interesting ideas for the future of these enemies in further content.

Like Sunless Seas, I love the idea of these games. The atmosphere and story is very much my kind of thing. Unfortunately I have limited patience for the roguelike genre of games so I might not make much progress with it, but I am looking forward giving Sunless Skies a proper go all the same.

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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

I’m really glad I got to play this at EGX Rezzed, as although I’ve been looking forward to this and included it in my 2019 in Games post, recent trailers have had me slightly concerned. The demo however has mostly put those concerns to rest. I still don’t really like the graphics, while everything about the game screams the best of the metroidvania style Castlevania games, I do wish it was closer to Symphony of the Night in graphical style. As it stands, Ritual of the Night is a 2.5D game, and the graphics are reminiscent of the Dracula X Chronicles game on the PSP, albeit it much more polished.

The gameplay feels perfect for the genre though, and they have nailed everything else about it. Happily back to just looking forward to this now, and think it’ll be a perfect fit for the Switch.

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Lamplight City

As I was passing the Application Systems Heidelberg booth, I was captured by the 19th century Victorian aesthetic of Lamplight City, and I do enjoy a good point & click adventure. The nature of the EGX Rezzed event means I only got to enjoy the first few screens and puzzles, but I’m now very much intending to play the rest of the game later.

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Dicey Dungeons

This was another pleasant surprise on the day. I had heard murmorings of Dicey Dungeons over the last month or two, but didn’t know much about it. I sat down to the demo because one of my friends was interested in seeing it. I didn’t immediately take to the art style, but the mechanics were quite addictive. It felt a bit similar to playing Slay the Spire, with deck-building supplemented with added dice rolling.

One to watch I think.

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Guntastic

Startlingly simlar to 2015’s Duck Game, the premise to both games is still great fun. A single screen arena for four players to shoot each other. On my second day at Rezzed I was joined by three friends, and we had a blast with this.

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Super Arcade Racing

Another game that the four of us enjoyed playing together, and I still enjoy the novelty of 4 player split screen racing. The world needs more top down racing games. Haven’t been able to find much more about the game since the event though, but I would like to pick it up.

Other mentions:

Warhammer: Chaosbane

A pretty shameless Diablo clone in the Warhammer universe. Did have fun with the demo, but I found it lacks the charm and polish of Blizzard’s game. So far as the demo went, it didn’t really do anything new for me, but would certainly fill a gap if you’ve exhausted Diablo 3 and don’t want to go down the Path of Exile rabbit hole. Games Workshop fans can expect to get a lot more out of it too.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2: Wings of Magic

Was a bit disappointed by the demo of this. Vermintide 2 is the current game of choice for the four of us who attended Rezzed together. I had hoped we could try this expansion together, but they only had two PCs linked so we gave it a miss.

Dirt Rally 2.0

Was nice to get hands on with this demo. Like the original Dirt Rally, it is really impressive. Looks fantastic, the cars feel great and it oozes polish. Difficulty from the first game remains though, and thus it is still impossible for humans. (Well, for me anyway.)

Round up

The best events are always those where you can spend a good amount of time playing new games, but also take in the atmosphere, meet new people and spend quality time with friends. Rezzed has always ticks these boxes, and 2019 was no exception, an excellent event. Personally I think this year was the best EGX Rezzed yet.

See you next year!