No Place For Bravery: Man On a Mission
If there were a theme to this year's PAX East demos, “souls-inspired” would most assuredly be said theme. However, despite the abundance of games taking a page from the franchise's book, there’s a pleasant amount of variety to the tone and formula that I've seen from them on the showroom floor. Glitch Factory is no exception with their hand crafted action-RPG, No Place For Bravery.
No Place For Bravery sees you taking the role of ex-soldier Thorn, and offers up an array of blood drenched combat scenarios as you venture across the visually striking, pixel art land of Dewr. With timing based combat that requires analysis of enemy behavior and the weapons they wield, you’ll be forced to think on your feet with every step you take. Survival and success comes with utilizing every potion and item in your inventory as you come across formidable enemies and trap filled dungeons.
Quoted as largely taking inspiration from titles such as Dark Souls, Sekiro, and Devil May Cry, No Place For Bravery preserves the difficulty of its inspirations and allows players to fully adjust that difficulty through various sliders in any way they see fit. This forgoing the “get good” mentality not only allows for a uniquely personalized experience, but also allows players to take in the narrative of the game in a way that is most desirable for them; a narrative that deals with the lengths a father will go to save his daughter.
Upon speaking more in-depth with the game producer, Matheus Queiroz, it was made clear how deeply personal this story was; not only for him, but for the entire Brazil based dev team as well. Matheus shared the conditions of Brazil with me, notably how most of its residents grow up fatherless. Informing players of what the ramifications of growing up fatherless can be, No Place For Bravery intends to shed a hopeful ray of light onto the real world situation that so many of them have endured - Exemplifying the resilience of people and displaying the hopeful side of a deeply heavy and personal theme.
No Place For Bravery is set to launch in Q3 of 2022 on Switch and PC. With any luck, we won’t have to wait much longer to reunite Thorn with his daughter and uncover the mysteries of the mythic land of Dewr.
Written by Justin Hyde