New Arc Line Hands-on Preview—Welcome to the New Age

With a name like New Arc Line, I genuinely didn’t know what kind of game to expect. While it’s true you can’t judge a book by its cover—or a game by its name—a title really is supposed to give you some idea of what to expect. Animal Well is about a well full of animals. Lies of P is about a guy named P telling lies. But New Arc Line? As far as I could tell, that could be a subway building sim.

I’m only joking of course, but one of the things I always enjoy about doing these previews is getting to be surprised by things I was mostly unaware of. While, based on a few screenshots, I assumed New Arc Line was a kind of tactical turn-based game akin to XCOM or Fire Emblem, it’s actually a full-on RPG pulled straight from the tabletop and adapted to a videogame. 

I was immediately floored by the depth New Arc Line offers in player creation. So many modern RPGs today feel as though there’s barely any role to play in them, but, perhaps with the exception of Baldur’s... Read more