Elements, a beautiful indie homage to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, is on course to meet its release deadline.
Speaking with SegmentNext in a recent interview, Devon Parsons, founder of developer Wreckit Games and the one-man army leading the charge, stated that Elements will soon be ready for alpha testing.
He noted that while a release in late 2022 is still within reach, a delay might be considered if additional time is required to ensure a polished product at release.
“All of the core mechanics are in the game,” said Parsons on the state of the game. “Right now I am finishing off a pre-alpha build. Elements is a big game and although Q4 2022 is the target and I am confident we will have something amazing by then, I would never release something unfinished or unpolished.”
Elements boasts an open world which spans across 36 square kilometers, which comes to nearly half the size of Breath of the Wild. Parsons confirmed that players can freely roam the map without any restrictions and gather all eight elemental stones in any order they wish, but having the right elemental stone against a particular boss will definitely ensure better results.
Within the same vein, the first elemental stone players find will define how they progress in the world. Each zone in the game introduces a new movement mechanic and with different enemies based on different elements, the easiest approach will come down to the right order of elemental stones, which Parsons hopes players will be interested in finding by spending a lot of time.
“Elements is a combination of all the things I have loved about games since playing NES as a kid. You will also see inspiration from The Witcher 3, Minecraft and even Destiny.”
Coming to gameplay features, Parsons pointed out that Elements will release with only split-screen co-op and remote play on Steam. Adding an online co-op option post-release is on the list but not something he wants to presently commit.
The game offers between 20 to 30 hours of gameplay time but completionists will require “considerably more time” to unlock all secrets and more. Parsons actually wants to keep adding new content and expanding the world post-release to keep the game fresh, which may possibly include new features as well such as the aforementioned online co-op mode.
Elements is currently running at 4K resolution in 60 frames per second on PC. While no play-tests have been performed, the developer expects the game to run the same on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 as well.
PlayStation 5 owners will particularly be happy to know that Wreckit Games hopes to incorporate the adaptive triggers and the haptic feedback of DualSense “in a new and innovative way.” The developer however is yet to figure out how.
Crafting has always been a mandatory part of a role-playing game and Elements features a crafting system made easy for players to understand.
“I don’t think it makes sense to over-complicate systems,” said Parsons. “There will also be ways to dive deeper into the system, but the goal is to make it accessible for everyone. Elements is all about options. If you don’t want to fight for a specific weapon, you will be able to craft a similar one.”
That being said, players will be rewarded for exploration. “Some of the best gear will drop from specific enemies and mini-bosses,” confirmed Parsons before assuring that players can still craft or upgrade their existing weapons and gear to be “almost as powerful as boss drops.”
Wreckit Games is counting on the community to share different builds early on so that the developer can use the feedback to make balance changes.
