Publishing and development groups Dotemu, Guard Crush Games and Supamonks have announced an arcade style beat ’em up known as Absolum. Gematsu has shared that the title features roguelite elements such as counters, upgradable abilities, and unique characters. Absolum will release for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC sometime this year, 2025.
The setting of Absolum is Talamh, a medieval fantasy land where magic has been banned following a cataclysmic event by the Sun king Azra. You will assume the role of magic wielding rebels set on combating the Sun King Azra; Galandra, Karl and two additional allies.
Inverse had the chance to speak with art director Maxime Mary and asked about Absolum’s source of inspiration, Mary had this to say “The references didn’t come from video games. It was more about comics and animation. I tried to not look at video games and stick to my references from French comics from my childhood, and American comics too. This is my first job for video games. I’m from animation and working for features on TV shows. I wanted to avoid a lot of tools that we use in video games, like everything that is generated from the software like rim lights, the sparkles, the smoke. Everything is made by hand with animators, I wanted to stick with that as much as I could.”
Absolum features branching paths. Couch co-op is featured as is the ability to synchronize attacks for chain combos. The soundtrack features Gareth Coker, who has worked on Ori, Halo Infinite, Prince of Persia, Yuka Kitamura of Dark Souls fame and Mick Gordon having worked on DOOM Eternal and Atomic Heart.
Absolum appears to be a great collaborative effort in that many industry leaders are putting their expertise into it, from development, to art direction and music. It will be interesting to see how the beat ‘em up title will implement it’s technical elements later this year.