Skydance’s Behemoth gameplay revealed, launches on PS VR2 Fall 2024

Mountaintops loom in the distance. Wind whips across your ears, muffling the crunch of snow from your footsteps. Then you feel it–a rumble beneath your feet. Rhythmic. Growing. The vibrations rattle through your legs up to the sword in your hands.

Something big is coming.

An image of a snowy landscape, filled with ruins and dropped weaponry. In the foreground, several armoured foes raise axes and swords, preparing to strike the player. Towering over them in the background is a behemoth, dragging a huge ball on a chain along side it.

Skydance Games set a new standard for grounded, gritty VR combat with our previous title, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. For our next game, the team wanted to tackle new challenges. We believed there was an experience of grand scale that only VR could achieve. How far could we push that?

We designed this dark fantasy to stretch the boundaries of what’s possible inside a headset, creating a grim new world teeming with mystery and dangers great and small. When you enter the Forsaken Lands, one thing is clear: You are not welcome here. Everything and everyone wants to kill you. Are you bold enough to forge ahead?

Our team is proud to present Skydance’s Behemoth, out Fall 2024.

Skydance’s Behemoth gameplay revealed, launches on PS VR2 Fall 2024

Scale the world

The Forsaken Lands are epic. Bones of a once-great civilization jut out from unforgiving terrain. Sprawling mountains on the horizon cast shadows on the lands below. Colossal towers hang over your path as you hunt for a Behemoth’s hidden lair.

“Everything in this game is designed relative to the Behemoths. It’s important that players are awed by the size and scale of each boss. You’re literally fighting a mountain.”

Brian Murphy, Game Director, Skydance’s Behemoth

This image shows a crumbling castle built out of a mountainside stretches into the skies above. Fog permeates its lower reaches, while a flock of birds soar over the rooftops.

The Forsaken Lands are your gauntlet and your hunting ground. Equipped with a grappling hook and unnatural grip strength, you’ll climb, zip, and reel to ascend or descend walls, towers, and cliffsides. Surmount barriers hindering your path, explore nooks and crannies to claim hard-to-reach items, or grasp onto unsuspecting foes and cast them into the abyss.

A POV shot. Inside a wooden tower, the player aims and fires their grappling hook up towards a grappling point. In their right hand, they have a sword raised, ready to attempt a deflection of an arrow fired by a nearby enemy who cocks their bow while standing on the platform directly above.

But don’t get cocky. One step in the wrong direction can spell disaster for you. Push too hard against the Forsaken Lands, and they will push back.

Hunt or be hunted

Although desolate at a glance, the Forsaken Lands are populated by marauders and zealots. To them, you are an outside threat, a rival that must be executed. You cannot reason with them, so you must carve your way to victory by any means necessary.

Skydance’s Behemoth puts a new twist on our signature physics-driven melee combat system.

“Building on our work on The Walking Dead games, we have continued to push our gore-tech and dismemberment systems in a way that players should find truly satisfying.”

Peter T. Akemann, Chief Technologist, Skydance’s Behemoth, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners

A POV shot. The player swings an axe in one hand towards an attacker directly in front of them, while their other hand clutches a dagger. Behind their opponent another foe has loosened their bow, with the arrow streaking past the player’s head.

Your foes are not mindless zombies, they’re skilled, strategic warriors. Stay on your toes. Avail yourself of every weapon you can grasp. Block, parry, hack, and slash to wear their strength down. Then crack skulls, drive blades through hearts, sever limbs and cleave everything in between.

These tortured denizens have succumbed to the ancient curse that ruined their former kingdom, the source of the bloodlust that plagues the Forsaken Lands.

That same curse grants you bursts of supernatural strength that can turn the tide in battle. Why? That is a mystery to you, for now. But it is an advantage you will need against those enemies who tower above all others…

Conquer mighty Behemoths

You have come to the Forsaken Lands to end this terrible curse before its wrath devastates the world beyond. The Behemoths are evil made flesh, their size and strength matched by their rage. The only way to end the curse is to slay them.

A POV shot. In the middle of a blizzard, the player gazes above them as a behemoth strides by, the monster’s head bent down to observe the tiny figure at its feet.

“I can’t overstate what it feels like to fight a Behemoth in VR. We talked a lot about the “pucker factor” of each encounter. When the Seal swings that flail and it smashes to the ground, your adrenaline spikes. That’s what we were after, a visceral response from our players.”

Brian Murphy, Game Director, Skydance’s Behemoth

Many hunted Behemoths before you. They all died trying. When you fight these mountainous monsters, every skill you’ve honed over miles of harsh terrain and many (many, many) buckets of blood is put to the test. Face your fears, push yourself beyond limits, and you just might kill the unkillable. Only then will the darkest secrets of the Forsaken Lands be revealed…

So, who’s ready to hunt?