Nightholme preview: Arc Raiders, Dead by Daylight, and LoL combined for 'extraction horror'

Crouched outside a typical suburban garage, I pause for a moment. In my view are three Lovecraftian-inspired horrors, skulking around, waiting for me to make a sound so they can pinpoint my location and overwhelm me. I wait until two of them are grouped together then sneak behind and assassinate the one separated from the pack.

I turn and skirt around the outside, past some garbage cans, and one-hit kill the second as it leaves the vicinity of the third, which looks a little stronger than the others. This one isn't vulnerable to a stealth attack, so taking out the other two first was essential to ensure the fight would be one-on-one. A few chained melee attacks later, I have three corpses primed for looting.

This was how one of my Nightholme matches began when I visited Studio Ellipsis earlier this month. I was in a team of three, exploring a typical American suburb, hunting down "lesser horrors" to acquire skills and collect "gloomhearts," which are used to spawn a colossal, raid-esque boss.

Image: Studio Ellipsis/FunPlus

Nightholme follows a typical MOBA structure where every player starts on a level playing field and must earn XP to spend on skills. Where some games treat smaller mobs as mere cannon fodder before turning your attention to more challenging enemies, one misstep here and you're in serious trouble.

Every enemy is a threat in Nightholme, especially if you're operating as a lone wolf. Fighting one-on-one isn't too difficult, but enemies are attracted to noise — attacking one often draws several more. You often won't see the humanoid enemies until it's too late, thanks to the ominously dark environments. Special shout out to the Fearmonger, which is almost werewolf-esque in design and will grab you from behind with its tongue, then drag you kicking and screaming through the streets.

Floating enemies, known as Void Shepherds, have flowing, orange tentacles and pulsating eyes dotted across their torsos, and can be seen silhouetted against the night sky. They'll usually patrol main roads or hang around near gloomhearts, but because they're aerial, having at least one player on your team play as the 'control' class is essential. In the early pre-alpha build I played, it was the only one with a ranged attack.

Image: Studio Ellipsis/FunPlus

There are also extraction mechanics at play in Nightholme. If you successfully escape, you retain your inventory, and there will be various NPCs and vendors who offer quests, sell items, and more. (Unfortunately, they weren't present in my demo build, so I can't speak to their implementation just yet.) This means you can approach each run as you see fit.

If your goal is to face the boss, acquire the best loot, and leg it to the extraction, knock yourself out… though teamwork is strongly recommended. That’s because the Rooted Mother — a colossal, fleshy amalgamation that sprouted out of the earth and wielded a spear — was a formidable foe, even with multiple teams working together.

Fancy going in solo? Turn your lantern off and stick to the shadows. You can be nothing more than a blur in the periphery of both monsters and other players, leaving a trail of corpses and opened loot containers in your wake. This is as much a PvP game as it is a PvE one though, so expect to encounter other players hellbent on taking you down.

Image: Studio Ellipsis/FunPlus

No matter which character you pick, before entering a game, you must drink a serum that transforms you into a version of the monsters you're hunting. There are no weapons in Nightholme; you are the weapon. As you power up, you can transform into stronger versions of the same monster. It slowly drives you insane though, represented by a sanity meter, and makes you more visible to other players.

Studio head Alex Amancio described it as "you either have control or power. You have trust or betrayal. Everything is on a razor's edge. It's kind of like that Nietzschean thing where power corrupts. If you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

The build I played was clearly still many months away from release. There were plenty of bugs, unfinished assets, and under-developed skill trees. It's clear there's a solid foundation here though, and Studio Ellipsis have innovative ambitions within the horror, multiplayer, and extraction genres.

At a surface level, it reminded me of Highguard, in the way it combines features from multiple successful games into one, which may sound like a damning criticism but isn't intended as such. There are elements of Arc Raiders, Dead by Daylight, League of Legends, Destiny 2, and Left 4 Dead here. The difference is, I think the Nightholme team is more likely to be onto a winner.

You can read more about Nightholme in our interview with studio head Alexandre Amancio.

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Disclosure: This article is based on a preview event held at Studio Ellpisis’ headquarters in Lisbon, Portugal, from March 16-17. Studio Ellipsis provided Polygon’s travel and accommodations for the event. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.