Cube World: Explorers - New Gameplay Video

Wollay, the mind behind “Cube World”, has released a new gameplay video.

And it looks astounding.

Videogames have always felt like the underdog medium in comparison to it’s heftier big-budget brothers; film and television. So when AAA games started becoming the norm it was natural that gamers would yearn for games to be a little less casual and a little less mainstream.

In an attempt to do this we got games like Minecraft and 3D Dot Game Heroes which utilised voxel-based engines to create 3D models with an all too familiar retro 2D aesthetic - this graphical style applied to all styles of gameplay but with it came the ability to create. Literally building your characters and buildings like each voxel was a lego block. Brilliant!

Wait. What’s a voxel?

In a 2D world, a whole bunch of pixels make up a player’s sprite:

Whereas a voxel does the exact same, but in 3D:

Now hopefully we’ve set up the stage for Cube World, because it combines all of these wonderful concepts and forms something altogether brilliant and exciting.

One of the most incredible things we witness in this trailer is the player’s ability to fly using gliders, to sail using Boats and cross deserts using camels. Each mode of transport is shifted between with effortless transitions.

The maps are huge. With a world created completely in voxel graphics the potential for a huge world is not only attained in Cube World, it has pushed past it’s potential and created a world with an extreme level of depth.

Some sort of crafting is present - though I gotta say I’m not sure how this is affected by the fact that you can EDIT YOUR WEAPON’S APPEARANCE voxel-by-voxel!

Pretty solid combat with stealthy archers and what looks like a solid multiplayer system. Also there is some sort of specialization system going on as a mage switches between a fire magic skill tree and a water one.

Giant bosses and parties of enemies to face off against - because what good would it be to forge Thor’s Mjolnir and not have some sort of giant to wedge it into?

In conclusion: I never touched on Minecraft, and the gameplay in 3D Dot Game Heroes’ was too shallow and gimmicky.

Cube World, however, has got my attention - exploring with my buddies online, riding boats as our own created character models with our own created swords in a world with fantastic visuals. Brilliant.

Finally, here’s some older (but just as good) multiplayer footage to satiate your tastebuds:

Wollay’s Blogspot

Wollay’s Twitter