In 2021, a small group of ex-Blizzard developers decided to found Moon Beast Productions. Only four years later, the studio around Phil Shenk, Erich Schaefer, and Peter Hu invited a small group of creators and websites, including Wowhead, to test their upcoming ARPG, Moon Beast Game (which is a placeholder name, obviously).
Until now, the masterminds behind Diablo 2 haven't shown much of their upcoming ARPG jewel, so we were eager to find out more about their game in what the developers called a "pre-pre-alpha" prototype that showcased a vertical slice of their general game idea.
To evaluate and review the kind of vertical slice playtest we have experienced with Moon Beast Game over the last few days, we decided to dive deep into three principal pillars of ARPG game design: Systems, Content, and Balance.
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The Systems
The system part of an ARPG showcases the general logic behind a general game idea. How does combat work and feel? What exactly is character progression in Moon Beast Game? How do level-ups work? In what way does the player interact with the world while playing?
Combat
Every player of the genre knows that the life of an ARPG depends on palpable and fast-paced combat. If combat in an ARPG is not inherently fun, then the game itself isn't fun.
Normally, the player will make this decision within minutes, and Moon Beast Game is no exception. After reaching Level 2 and unlocking my second active skill, I was convinced that combat in this game felt really good. The main reason for that was the game's Jump and Dash buttons, which are available from Level 1. Combined with the built-in dash of my Primary Skill, Glyph Lunge, I was highly mobile and able to chain things together.
A short fight sequence at Level 2. Mana is an issue early on, so I constantly needed to interact with Mana crystals on the ground.
The game's skills themselves feel very complete. Animations play out short, crisp, and don't need to be canceled to react to monster attacks.
Character Progression
When it comes to Character Progression, Moon Beast Game plays it safe. Each level up grants 5 Attribute Points and 1 Skill Point - just like in Diablo 2.
The four different attributes - Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Magic - do exactly what you'd expect in a modern ARPG, with the exception of Vitality, which also increases the Critical Chance of Shadow damage. As a theorycrafter, I was intrigued by a defensive, life-increasing attribute that also offered an offensive upside, so I invested all my points in Vitality from then on.
Other character stats follow the same basic ARPG route - Attack, Armor, Life, Mana, Elemental Resistances, Elemental Penetration, Elemental Crit Chance.
A first look at the Skill Tree continues to paint a very classical ARPG image. Aside from the first skill, Glyph Lunge, all skills offer three or four different so-called Options to invest points in. It is apparent that Moon Beast hasn't spent too much time fleshing out the Skill Tree yet, which is perfectly fine, especially in a "vertical slice" kind of test like we played in.
What matters much more is that the skills of choice are fun to use - and they absolutely were. A total of five skills were unlockable, and all of them offered unique gameplay around aspects like movement, long range, over-time damage, and so on.
Procedural Generation
In general game design theory, Procedural Generation isn't exactly a system - but in Moon Beast Game, it absolutely is. Procedural Generation and, much more importantly, Destruction, are the unique selling points of this game in our opinion.
A perfect example of Moon Beast Game's Procedural Generation: The Necropolis, a dynamic world event, suddenly emerged out of the ground and put me into a high-level death zone - ouch!
You can destroy and use most of the environment to your advantage. You can destroy walls in dungeons to create shortcuts, you can dig holes into the ground that unleash a river to stop lava, and so much more. And not only that: Sometimes, the game's environment works against you - like a dynamic world event that creates a deadly sub-zone out of nowhere or a wall that gets destroyed by one of your projectiles and aggroes a horde of skeletons during a boss fight.
The sky is the limit when it comes to building and destroying environment in this game - in theory. Moon Beast Productions also promises that player building will be a thing in the future, which adds yet another layer of vertical ARPG fantasy.
In reality, big on-screen environmental changes in games almost always require a lot of resources to render and behave properly. The Necropolis event showcased this challenge, as FPS drops really limited my ability to perform actions like dashing multiple times in a row.
In total, the whole "destroy and use your environment" aspect of this playtest still felt like a breath of fresh air. Other ARPG titles have tried this before, but Moon Beast Game does a fantastic job with it and makes it an impressive but still "risky" centerpiece of their general design idea behind the game.
The Content
The content of an ARPG is its visible backbone, the bare minimum that is needed to create an immersive world to hack and slay in. What is the game's visual theme? Do content types like dungeons exist, and if so, how do they feel compared to other content? What's the overall gameplay loop to keep players busy?
Overworld
Right now, Moon Beast Game showcases a fairly generic dark fantasy world that looks very complete for an early preview, which is combined with a fantastic thematic soundtrack and sound effects. The voxel-based environment feels very realistic and alive, but certainly lacks polish and graphical fidelity, which is absolutely normal at this point in game design. In fact, the designers have mentioned during the playtest that the graphics are not final whatsoever and will receive updates in the near future.
Dungeons
As it should be, dungeons in ARPGs house a condensed and more challenging version of the overworld, which is exactly the case here. Dungeons feature more elite and champion packs and, most of the time, a fairly challenging end boss or encounter.
What's already great is that dungeon layouts are circular. There are no dead ends and almost no backtracking. In fact, you can almost always find a shortcut or even secret rooms by destroying dungeon walls.
Dynamic Events
While the normal overworld and its dungeons don't look exactly innovative, Moon Beast Game's dynamic events certainly do. The Necropolis event, which we've already talked about, felt challenging and also uniquely designed.
When you start your journey at Level 1, the Necropolis part of the map is small - but once you've interacted with the Altar of the Ancient Gods, there's no turning back. Over the course of the main story quest line, the big boss of the Necropolis, called Narlathak (yes, that really was his name, Diablo 2 fans), quickly expands his deadly realm, chock-full of high-level skeletons.
As a result, the overworld as you knew it changed as well - waypoints are no longer accessible, and NPCs disappear to make way for what seems to be unstoppable. Only through defeating Narlathak were you able to eventually destroy the Necropolis and at least somewhat restore the overworld to its original state.
Obviously, this event was made to impress and showcase Moon Beast Game's big selling point - which it absolutely did. This event truly deserves the "dynamic" descriptor, and we can't wait to see more of this type of content.
The Balance
Last but not least, the overall balance of an ARPG is the most essential aspect of an ARPG to feel fun and meaningful in the long run. How good or bad are items? What difference do they make? What are other ways to itemize your character? How difficult is the game overall, and how hard are bosses in particular?
Itemization
Moon Beast Game relies on a combination of trusted ARPG itemization engines like item affixes, item rarity, item bases, and sockets. Even the Horadric Cube makes an appearance in the form of the "Puzzle Box", which is basically a carbon copy of one of Diablo 2's biggest inventions back in the day.
However, you will also find more innovative elements like the Tattoo system, which allows you to inscribe runes onto your skin to modify your skills further.
Difficulty
Surprisingly enough, the difficulty while playing this prototype felt spot-on and created dynamic pacing during character progression. Overleveled monsters hit very hard and require a tactical approach to be beaten, while underleveled monsters fall over instantly. As a result, it was essential to keep track of which level the monsters around you were to gain experience and decent loot.
Elemental Damage
As mentioned earlier, Moon Beast Game's character progression and itemization revolve around your base attributes and other stats. For example, the six damage types - Blunt, Slashing, Shadow, Fire, Lightning, and Cold - look fairly trivial at first, but we've quickly noticed that most weapon drops are "imbued" so that they deal a certain type of damage.
While number-based balance design, like affixes and DPS, is most certainly a design area that developers will revisit later, the decision to give players freedom when it comes to their choice of weapon, even in the earliest stages of the game, looks intentional.
A look at a rare, Lightning-imbued dagger. Not only does it deal Lightning damage - it also has Chance to Shock and Increased Shock Duration!
Here's one example: Remember how I was investing heavily into Vitality to boost my Shadow Critical Hit Chance? Initially, I wanted to increase the damage of my Shadow Walk ability - but that was before I found my first Shadow-imbued dagger! While daggers are Dexterity-based weapons - a stat I haven't invested points in - it still felt exceptional to equip one that dealt Shadow damage and not Slashing damage like it would if it weren't imbued.
For an ARPG prototype, making these kinds of decisions at Level 3 or 4 already felt great. While the design behind this idea could certainly change fundamentally, the general approach to damage types opens up new ways to look at weapons instead of just choosing the one with the highest DPS number.
The Result: A Diamond in the Rough?
Reviewing our list of ARPG design aspects made one thing clear: for every two generic aspects, Moon Beast Productions introduces a third, much more innovative aspect that is unique to their game idea. The developers of this game have made careful choices about which design idea is worth fighting for and where, instead, they want to trust their initial creations from their time at Blizzard.
We came down to this simple yet precise comparison: Diablo 2 is the most precious gem in the ARPG genre. In the late 90s, after years of mining through ideas, it was found, polished, and cut to surprising perfection and beauty.
Moon Beast Game, on the other hand, certainly looks like a promising diamond in the rough, which is in the process of being polished and cut. To create another precious ARPG gem, the developers must take the risk of polishing and cutting by introducing innovative concepts like procedural generation or dynamic world events.
We can only hope that Moon Beast Productions can expand on what they have shown in their prototype - because if they manage to do so, we should be able to play a fantastic next-gen action role-playing game in the not-so-distant future.
As of right now, Moon Beast Productions hasn't announced a release date for their upcoming ARPG. If you're interested in the game and future playtests, feel free to join the Moon Beast Community Discord Server!
