Gore Effects in Half Sword (Early Access)

Half Sword is a game I've been following from a very, very early stage. I remember the old showcases with the yellow characters that got my interest at the time and led to the first interview with Frank and Ivan. And now it hit the long anticipated early access release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zYzEsAR4qk

Even this review is not the final verdict. Gore 3.0 is one the enhancements they'll be introducing over the early access phase. I'm familiar with some of the things they have planned and I can say that there is a lot to be excited about.

But even in the current state there is a lot to enjoy, and we have a first glimpse into one of the features they'll be greatly expanding in Gore 3.0.

Body damage

One of the big features in our topic is dynamic dismemberment. There are no pre made points of amputation and where you slice is where the body part gets cut, which can deliver crazy cool results.

If you've been following the channel you'll know that it is an extremely uncommon feature in games. You'll see it in some small experimental projects, but rarely in a full fledged game. Shadow Warrior 2 is one of the few examples that come to mind.

But, there is a certain thing about it that makes it stand out even more. In every game\project that has dynamic dismemberment that I'm aware of, the insides will be just some form of a generic texture. Well, as you've probably already seen, in Half Sword you have the insides modeled out.

You won't get actual-autopsy-tier results (there are limitations, after all) but what you will get is the kind of stuff no other game at the moment delivers. Calling it remarkable would be an understatement.

In a horror game, be the monster

As you can see in the screenshot above, partial dismemberment is a factor in the game and you will often have the character held together just a little bit. What's interesting is that how strong the character held together will vary. On some hits you can just lift the character\severed chunk and he'll just come apart, on some hits you'll have to shake him pretty good, but there may be a need to chop a bit more to finish the job.

There is a limitation and an issue though.

The limitation is that you can't cut off fingers. I've tried that a lot but it appears that every time there's a devastating enough cut in that area you'll just have the entire hand come off.

The actual issue at the moment is though that dismemberment is way too easily activated. I remember in the demo version, at least for me, getting a solid vertical dismembering hit at the torso was not an easy feat. Now those basically happen left and right, you can see several examples in the impressions video (starting at about 5:27). The best way I can describe it right is that it feels you're slicing as if bones aren't there.

I imagine it is a temporary issue, they did get it right in the demo.

As for the non dismembering response, we have multi layer damage.

You'll have clothes and skin layers that can be stained in blood, and a bottom layer of muscles and bones. At the moment you actually can't dig deeper than that layer, and believe me I tried. But I wonder if that will change.

What I do want to note is that activation for the non dismembering response is better now than it was in the demo. In the demo you would often see just a blood soaked area instead of an actual cut, for the most part that's not the case anymore. The issue only persists with the face where you'll usually see just blood with no deformation, or dismemberment.

Environment

At the moment the blood spilling is the most WIP aspect, they are transitioning to a new system so it's kind of in an inbetween state. They'll be moving from decals that you're seeing now be used for splats and blood pools, to a system of directly painting the surface. The very initial implementation we have now is the droplets.

There are several really cool things about the new system:

It should be much easier on performance compared to decals. So you can have pretty much as many of those as you want with a minimal performance impact.

It should allow for a really wide variety of possible results. Presumably splats could be formed from droplets and smaller patterns, and instead of using dozens of decals for each one it just gets painted. Which once again - should be much easier on performance.

And perhaps some effects can be applied to it too. A blood effects demo from Overgrowth (that didn't make the game itself) was mentioned as an inspiration.

So I won't go dissecting the current system as it will be changing, but I do have to note that at the moment I'm writing this there are maps where the blood spilling won't work quite as well and there are maps where the blood spilling will barely work.

Animations

At the core of it all is the physics based combat. So absolutely everything - the way the character moves, the attacks and the responses are all going to be physics based rather than the regular animations we see in most games. That delivers a massively different experience from what we're used to (I remember trying to just get the hang of it when I first played Exanima) and of course, it REALLY spices up the responses. The force of the impacts, the momentum of the character's movement, the state of the character (fresh\tired\injured), it all comes together beautifully and deliver an experience that's really enjoyable in every single fight.

As I mentioned, there will be a very visualized injured state for the character, you will see characters responding to specific limb injuries and bleeding is taken into account too.

The only issue for me is with the latter. There is a factor of recovery, which is understandable for the sake of gameplay. But very often you'll see characters bleed profusely after a devastating hit and the wound will just close up on its own. So I think that at a certain threshold of bleeding you just gotta let the character bleed. Such a threshold may already exist and if that's the case, I think it should be lower.

Conclusion

Even with the blood spilling being in an in between state, and not as nice as it was in the Abyss demo, the response will absolutely be exceptional. The combination of a solid physics based combat system with the gore system we have here will deliver an experience that at the moment simply no other game does.

And as I mentioned, they're not done yet and I do wonder if we'll be seeing improvements to the body damage and whether there will be any new major features added to the animations side.

You can get the game here.

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