15 best video games coming in 2019: Kingdom Hearts 3 and more
By Matt Becker
10. Code Vein
Developer: Bandai Namco
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Platform(s): PS4, Xbox One, PC
Release Date: TBD 2019
After a delay last year, Bandai Namco’s highly anticipated action RPG Code Vein is set to release sometime in 2019. Dubbed the “anime Dark Souls“, Code Vein focuses on challenging combat and exploration with an awesome, anime art style. Players control vampire-esque characters with superpowers and badass weapons as they fight demonic creatures and gruesome bosses in a post-apocalyptic world.
It’s hard not to draw comparisons between Code Vein and games like Bloodborne and Dark Souls. Additionally, Code Vein definitely draws some influence from the God Eater games, which were also worked on by Code Vein director Hiroshi Yoshimura. With all these influences mixed together, along with some original ideas like customizable AI followers and a unique spell-casting system, Code Vein looks to be an interesting new take on the “Souls-like” genre of action RPGs.
The question is whether Bandai Namco can appeal to fans of these types of games while maintaining Code Vein’s identity as a vampire-themed anime-style game. It helps that the addition of AI companions, especially ones that can resurrect you upon death, adds a huge component to the game’s combat mechanics that nothing else in the genre has really done before. This new system, along with Code Vein‘s interesting aesthetic, could really shake up the crowded genre and make it a worthwhile game for RPG fans this year.
Hopefully, we won’t see another delay and get the chance to finally slay some anime demons on PS4, Xbox One, or PC sometime in 2019.