10 Best Open-World Games Of 2018
6. Ashen
In recent history, no other game has permeated video game culture quite like Dark Souls. From Lords of the Fallen and Nioh to Bandai Namco's upcoming Code Vein and a slew of indie impersonators, From Software's classic has single-handedly given rise to an entire sub-genre so popular that developers are still attempting to bottle its magic to this day.
A44's Ashen's is the latest in a long line of pretenders to the throne and quite possibly the most derivative, and yet, paradoxically, it's the most innovative 'Souls Clone' to date. Combat, while stripped back and heavily simplified, recaptures the methodical game of chess that prefaces every encounter in Lordran better than any Souls-like before it, a familiarity complimented by the unknown of a surreally beautiful world.
It's a relatively small landscape, but as indies always do best, Ashen trims the fat necessitated by its modest budget and makes every corner of its world matter, not least its main hub, which evolves from barren wasteland to bonafide settlement in real time. Journeying back to that home after every dungeon, pivotal story moment or quest completion to witness new houses and facilities filling the prior empty space is, to keep it simple, wonderful.