Pit People is an ambitious project.
The developers at The Behemoth are working their hardest to make one of their weirdest, and best games to date. I got the amazing chance to try out the Xbox One closed beta of the game, and from that, have gathered some thoughts on it. One thing to note before jumping into impressions. The game I played, in its current stage, is unfinished and nowhere near done. Some cutscenes are still in animatic form, and at one point in the game, the main story line just stops. With that in mind, let’s go.
The story of Pit People is just as weird of a story as you’d expect coming from The Behemoth. In short, the world was once peaceful, until the giant bear crashed into the planet, causing mass chaos. The game centers around a humble blueberry farmer named Horatio, who is hated by the games narrator and wants him dead. Refusing to die, and very frustrated, the narrator kills Horatio’s family, and now Horatio seeks revenge. Along his journey he meets other members of what will be his crew including the Princess Pipistrella, Yosef the cyclops, and more! Of course, the thing that ties everything together in the story is the delightfully hilarious narrator played by the very talented Will Stamper. (same narrator from Battleblock Theater.)
Pit People is a bit different than other behemoth games. While their other games usually focus on platforming and combat, this game is entirely focused on turn based battles and party management. The game plays very similar to games like Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics. Players move their characters a certain distance on a grid based board to attack enemies, and each weapons and armor have different strengths and weaknesses against each other. There are some things that PP does differently.
One of my favorite things is that you can actually move all your characters in one turn if you want, and while it’s very nice to be able to do this, it doesn’t compensate the difficulty and can still give you a challenge. You can also recruit enemies by buying cages in town and killing everyone but one person in an encounter. You even get a very humorous character entry when catching a new member for your party.
Now, you might be wondering to yourself if there’s anything else that this game has to offer outside of the main story mode, and the answer is yes! As the title of the game implies, you can test your strength in the arena where you have two options. You can play through an endurance type mode where you face off against 3 groups of AI teams in one life in order to score new weapons, armor, money, etc. The other mode is a team vs. team PVP mode against other players. You can even spectate battles and bet on individual players.While I do love this mode, I feel like it’d be fun if they added a bit more to do in spectator mode such as being able to throw insults at other teams, or maybe even throwing objects into the arena. Other than that, it’s a very addicting mode and tons of fun to play.
In conclusion, Pit People really stands out form developer Behemoths other ventures. The scale of this game is a bit beyond what they’ve done with their previous games while still maintaining what makes their games so special. I can’t wait to check out more and jump back into the game when it officially launches. No solid release date is planned yet, but is planning on launching for Xbox One and PC.