Depth of Extinction is now a Definitive Edition
It's been well over a year since I last covered Depth of Extinction, and it's been updated several times since then, with the latest update rebranding the game as Depth of Extinction: Definitive Edition. Many of the changes don't jump out at you right away—like the way your units all get their turns in order rather than character initiative being determined by something else (I think it was the speed stat, but it's been a long time). The detection ranges that were added in a while back have also been reduced to make it easier to set up ambushes. This, along with the addition of a stealthy class who can sneak into these ranges without activating enemy groups, centers Depth of Extinction: Definitive Edition's gameplay around the most enjoyable aspects of its launch version. Since I was a huge fan of the gameplay back then, these changes are all good news. Depth of Extinction: Definitive Edition also has controller support! It's less intuitive than the keyboard and mouse and you can see me accidentally move instead of attacking at 20:35, but as always, more options > fewer options. I noticed that the general gameplay was quite a bit faster, with enemies hesitating less before making their move, but I started a new game (so there are probably fewer calculations required given the smaller groups of fighters and absence of weapons with more advanced damage calculations) and upgraded my CPU since I last covered it. It's hard to tell what's an improvement versus just better hardware/circumstances. One obvious improvement that I very much appreciate revolves around follow mode, which allows the CPU to control all but one of your characters when enemies haven't yet been spotted. It used to be that they'd slowly move around the screen in pursuit of everything that can be picked up. They still pick up everything they can, but in this latest version, they teleport to their locations, sparing you the long walking animations that used to add up to a lot of waiting around. The map has also been streamlined—while you still move from node to node, the "overworld" node map has been replaced with an automatic progression toward your goal. The only problem I had while playing was a door that refused to open in the tutorial when I first started playing. I remembered enough about the gameplay to move to it before the tutorial told me to, and since the tutorial's doors are locked until you obey, it refused to open until I restarted the map. Tucked at the bottom of the Definitive Edition announcement is a "what's next" section that claims that the team is working on another game. This new game is apparently likely to reuse many of the same systems, and the possibility of another difficult sRPG releasing is always good news. Depth of Extinction: Definitive Edition is also coming to consoles soon, so be sure to keep an eye out for that if you're more of a console gamer. Read the full article
