Zine Falouti’s Shadows of Larth is a new third-person hack-and-slash game that recently released on Steam for PC. The Unreal Engine 4-made action title attempts to take the slash-and-dodge gameplay concept and turn it into an ice-skating affair where you slide and slip around while unleashing devastating attacks on bad guys.

The indie title attempts to combine some elements of European and Mediterranean cultures, including influences from Ottoman architecture and Persian weapons.

The game centers around a specially chosen warrior from the Marked Guild in order to defend the land of the Lower Larth from various evils.

You’ll need to learn new abilities, gather equipment and defeat minions in order to become a legendary champion for the people of Larth.

The hook for the game is that it attempts to combine elements of Soulsborne gameplay mechanics with classic action-oriented exploration reminiscent in games like Die By The Sword.

While the timing-based combat is pretty indicative of the influence from Dark Souls, where Shadows of Larth attempts to differentiate itself is the combination of using magic spells to crowd-control enemies while alternating with hack-and-slash attacks.

Additionally, instead of having dodge-roll you have a sliding dodge. You can use it to practically ice-skate around the battlefield and avoid any direct incoming enemy attacks.

I wouldn’t have minded the sliding dodge or the dodge-slide – whatever you want to call it – if maybe the animations didn’t look so stiff and laughable. The problem is that the main character doesn’t lean far enough to the left or right during the sliding animations, so it looks goofy and stiff.

It also would have looked way better if instead of sliding backwards he did a backwards flip. It would have added to the overall combat aesthetics and made the fights look a lot more dynamic as opposed to the dude just sliding around like a serial killer playing in a pool of his victim’s blood on a marble floor.

Anyway, If you were interested in a game like Ecstatica II but designed for newer generations, you can check out Shadows of Larth over on the Steam store for $29.99.