Biomorph looks to follow in the footsteps of now-iconic Hollow Knight – which etched itself into history as one of the best indie games of all time – while also channelling elements of Nintendo’s classic series, Kirby. We caught up with founder and technology developer at Lucid Dreams Studio, Francis Lapierre, to discuss how the team plans to shake up the classic genre.
As someone who loves all things dark and spooky, I was immediately drawn to Lucid Dreams’ Metroidvania game Biomorph. Featuring an awesome-looking, bat-like protagonist with huge ears and a passion for beating up bad guys, the game’s animated style and fast-paced action are an absolute treat for noughties emo kids like me.
While plot details are currently scarce, the core of Biomorph’s gameplay is the ability to scan enemies and transform into them, using their own attacks and tactics against them.
Not only is this a lot of fun, it makes the combat more varied and, depending on what enemies are around, a lot harder – after all, as Lapierre reminds us, “Biomorph is a Souls-like” – but just how did this mashup come to be?
Biomorph is the brainchild of a team of 12 developers, each of whom wanted to emulate the “personality” that Hollow Knight has in their own Metroidvania adventure.
It all began with the game’s protagonist, who initially started out as a robot. “The first version of the character was a robot, but we did playtests and people didn’t love it,” Lapierre explains, “so we redesigned him with the huge ears and then people loved it. Playing humans is what you do in your normal life – we wanted to move away from that.”
From there, the team moved onto the character’s biomorphing mechanics, looking at how they could integrate a Kirby-style ‘eat people and steal their powers’ mechanic into a completely polar opposite universe. “We asked ourselves ‘what can we do that hasn’t been done before?'” Lapierre tells me.
“You need to kill monsters to biomorph into them, but when you kill a monster it respawns and is a lot stronger – the monster learns as the character does,” Lapierre says. “When we present a new monster it’s the ‘vanilla’ version, but as they grow they get more challenging.”
This mechanic is specifically aimed at those who are seeking a challenge. “We want to attract fans of Souls-like games,” Lapierre says, but goes on to stress “we don’t want to make a game that’s too hard – even though it’s a Souls-like game we don’t want it to be unfair. We want it to be challenging, but not frustrating.”
While Lapierre confesses that this may not appeal to “hardcore Souls-like fans,” he hopes that the game’s storyline and stunning visuals will capture players’ imaginations.
The Biomorph release date is set for 2023, with more details emerging every day. If you’re looking for a challenge to keep you occupied in the meantime, be sure to check out our best games like Dark Souls for PC list to prepare for your Biomorph adventure.