Never's End Brings Creativity to Tactical RPGs | PAX West 2025
- Roger Reichardt
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Those familiar with tactical RPGs will feel right at home with Never’s End. But I didn’t expect to find elements of Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom during my time with the demo. While my gameplay didn’t last too long (thanks, permadeath), what I did play impressed me.
I start with four different characters, equipped with some basic weapons, one character had a pitchfork, another had a basic mace, while another had a saw. Thankfully, the game took it easy on me at first with some spiders that I quickly dispatched. This first battle introduced me to the core mechanics; my weapons and armor can take damage. While my starting weapons are fairly weak, I quickly acquired some better gear. Equipping the new gear changed the look of my characters. It’s a small detail, but it stood out and the pixel art is beautiful.
As I continued, I ran into some wights that gave me trouble, but they dropped a helmet and a long pole. Donning these made my characters look bad-ass. Of course, that gear took some damage during our battle, so I had to decide if it was worth dropping my current armor, which was much weaker, to take this damaged set. In the end, I decided the additional power was worth the risk, even if that meant it might be short lived.
Magic in the game is handled much differently than other games and it took some getting used to. In Never’s End, I learned the ability to manipulate heat, letting me lower the heat in one area and raise it in another, essentially creating a wind that I can push enemies around. In one battle, I encountered a skeleton near a fire pit, and thought it would be fun to push the skeleton into the flames. This didn’t quite work (the skeleton was on lower ground than the fire) and the devs explained even if it had, bone doesn’t catch fire, unless they are wearing cloth. However, the game encourages creativity, allowing me to experiment. Trying different combinations of magic and weapons reminds me so much of Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. I can’t wait to play more!