The upcoming action RPG Little Devil Inside, at first glance, seems to be new take on the monster-hunting/survival gameplay popularized by titles such as Monster Hunter: World, albeit with more cartoonish graphics and a Victorian fantasy setting. On closer glance, however, this indie game seems to satirize the trope of hunters pursuing monsters in uncharted landscapes by asking gamers this question: what kind of person would be desperate enough to do this as they day job?
The RPG Little Devil Inside is being put together by Neostream Interactive, a studio based out of Seoul. After a very successful Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter campaign, this indie development company moved ahead with the production of their premier title, an atmospheric survival adventure game they've described as being about "living a realistic life in an unrealistic world."
Details on the plot of Little Devil Inside are still a bit scare, but this much is known: the main character is an explorer-for-hire in a 19th century Steampunk-style setting, employed by a college professor to travel around the world and uncover supernatural creatures/phenomena. The cartoonish, stylized graphics of this game help to portray a surreal world of both stuffy Victorian life coupled with desolate wilds full of terrifying monsters and strange beings: The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker meets the art of Edward Gorey, one might say. Little Devil Inside isn't just a quirky take on the "Monster Hunter" sub-genre of RPGs, though: through both gameplay and plot, it deconstructs the whole concept of "Hunting Monsters for Money" so common to fantasy roleplaying games.
Little Devil Inside's Hero Is A Blue-Collar Worker Employed By the Upper Crust
The latest trailer for Little Devil Inside is a deliciously wicked example of narrative juxtaposition, contrasting the lives of the harried monster hunter and the studious, upper-crust college professor who sends them on missions. As the college professor buys bread, takes a bath, and reads in their study, the monster hunter wades through water, falls through a hole in the ice, outraces a sandstorm in the desert, sinks to the bottom of the ocean in an old-fashion diving suit, and fights for their life against a number of monsters with vast size and wickedly sharp teeth. The relationship between the hunter and his professor employer is the relationship between a wage laborer and their boss, in which the hunter does all the hard, grueling work of exploration and discovery while the professor takes all the credit.
Players of Little Devil Inside Will Need To Be Strategic and Fight Dirty
Developers at Neostream have stated that the main character of Little Devil Inside has no supernatural abilities, puissant artifacts, or magical powers. Against the monsters they face, all they can hope to rely on is their natural physical abilities, their wits, and an array of specialized tools. Besides a sturdy-looking broadsword (which can be buffed with some sort of fire concoction), trailers for Little Devil Inside also show the protagonist fighting with shields, guns, grappling hooks, and bombs. Terrain traversal will be no easy task either, with the gameplay sections of mountain climbing, cliff traversal, and stealth emphasizing just how small and in over their head the game protagonist feels.
Little Devil Inside PLayers Might Not Be the "Good Guys"
The explorers, big game hunters, and scientists of the Victorian era saw themselves as valiant explorers and daring visionaries... but to the modern eye (and to some social critics back in the day) many of these 'brave adventurers' were little better than callous brutes who conquered nations, promoted bigoted pseudo-science, and droves entire species into extinction. The strange spirits and massive monsters in Little Devil Inside are eerie and intimidating in form, but is the hunter who hacks them to bits and drags their carcasses back to their employer really any better?
At a certain point in the plot of Little Devil Inside, the hunter may be faced with a difficult choice: to continue to be the hatchet man for a cold, clinical academic, or reject his master-servant relationship and fight to defend the dangerous, eerie creatures that make his world a more interesting place. Which of these choices, though, would the devil smile upon?
Source: Kickstarter