Severed features a unique art style and gesture-controlled gameplay that takes advantage of the PlayStation Vita’s hardware capabilities, challenging players to stay alive while battling an army of supernatural beasts.
Revealed in 2015, Severed is a dungeon-crawling action game at its core, with combat encounters bridged by puzzles and exploration sequences. Each enemy encounter in Severed is uniquely demanding, as players must observe attack patterns while they dodge, parry, and counterattack using a touch-driven interface.
Severed also features a unique dismemberment mechanic, allowing players to target enemy limbs during each encounter. Severing specific enemy appendages will throw them off-balance, giving players an opening for attack. Defeated enemies in Severed drop loot and equipment, aiding in future encounters.
Prior to producing Severed, Drinkbox Studios released the acclaimed Guacamelee, a side-scrolling brawler inspired by classic platformers like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Originally released for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita, Guacamelee later made its way to the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U in an expanded edition.
After wrapping up work on Guacamelee, Drinkbox Studios spent many months polishing up Severed in the hopes of producing a worthy follow-up.
“Severed was initially planned as a Spring 2015 release,” Drinkbox COO Graham Smith explains, “but after showing an early demo of the game at PlayStation Experience in December 2014, we became inspired with a ton of new ideas and decided there was a lot more we wanted to add. It only took a whole extra year, but we’ve finally finished packing in as much as we could into Severed and we’re really happy with how it has turned out.”
