Siege of Stockholm Demo

The newest graphics engines are capable of many amazing things, especially when it comes to lighting and material rendering. Hence, photorealism is almost here, and you can even find a few staggering examples created with Unreal Engine 4 already. On the other hand, there’s still work to be done in this regard, and we also need a few more technological leaps before our computers are going to be able to render everything in real time.

Siege of Stockholm is not much of a game, but it’s a great experiment that allows you to witness an engaging battle from a first-person perspective and actually feel like you are part of it. On the other hand, you cannot actively participate in the said battle at all, even if you have a gun and you are a soldier yourself. It’s a bit of a bummer, but then again this is made clear to you from early on.

As such, the whole thing revolves around a great battle somewhere in Stockholm, Sweden. Demons have invaded the country and people are doing their best to fight against them, although they are using muskets to do so, which is not ideal. Thus, the action takes place in the 1600s, although that’s not very relevant to the experience.

Even if it’s not very interactive, the demo at hand makes you think about the possibilities. Hence, the action could be very visceral and enjoyable if you were able to use your gun and shoot some demons, but then again the gameplay mechanics are very difficult to integrate properly. An actual game might look and feel a lot clumsier than this glorified tech demo, but that’s not necessarily a rule.

As for the graphics, Unreal Engine 4 shows its fangs once more, and it’s actually very impressive. The developer managed to create a great atmosphere using nothing but a few trenches, snow and the occasional flying demon. However, you can tell that this would be a lot more engaging if you could actually participate in the battle and feel the thrill of always being in danger.

In the end, Siege of Stockholm is not going to keep you entertained for longer than five minutes, but it’s a pretty impressive display of force and beauty. Hence, it would be nice to see an actual game sometime in the future.