Forgotten Key and Daedalic Entertainment sent out a reminder to press that AER: Memories of Old is set to launch this Wednesday on October 25th.
The game will be available on Xbox One, PS4 and PC during the middle of the week as a digital download. The game isn’t very long, clocking in at around three hours, but it’s designed to focus on exploration and native American mysticism.
The hook for the game is that players are one of the last shapeshifters of old, and the shapeshifter has been tasked to journey to the land of the gods to seek their help in restoring balance to the fragmented reality of a dying world. Players must traverse through the shattered isles in the sky while attempting to reach the heavenly planes for an audience with the old ones.
Given that players take on the role of a shapeshifter, the hook for AER: Memories of Old is that you get to turn into a bird and fly around. You can check out some of the gameplay with the trailer below from Gaming Cypher.
I have to admit that the gameplay is not quite what I expected.
The U2-style instrumental soundtrack while you fly around as a bird is pretty soothing but even more-so given that the music changes and alters depending on whether you’re a human or a bird. What’s more is that the flight itself is what’s fascinating: The game moves along a lot faster than I thought it would.
The speed of flight is extremely smooth here and players will be able to glide through a variety of different isles as they attempt to reach their desired destination.
I can’t help but think that this is the exact sort of game that should be on the Nintendo Switch. It has that Legend of Zelda vibe to it and it seems like the kind of game that might become a sleeper hit on Nintendo’s little console-that-could.
We don’t have many open-air games on today’s home consoles, other than Gravity Rush 2, but it’s a far different experience than what you get in a game like AER, which focuses more on the exploration side of flight rather than the prescribed navpoint-style structures found in games like Gravity Rush. That’s not to mention that we don’t have any zen-like exploration titles on the Switch, other than Breath of the Wild. So in this case, having options or opportunities is never a bad thing.
Hopefully Daedalic really considers porting the game to the Switch; I doubt the graphics would be a problem given how lo-fi they are. The minimalist art-style could mean that it wouldn’t have as many problems going back and forth between TV mode and portable mode.
Anyway, if you need to learn more about AER: Memores of Old, don’t hesitate to pay a visit to the Steam store page or the game’s official website.
