Games like Amensia: The Dark Descent and Proteus put the player in some really intteresting shoes. You might have become accustomed to fighting your enemies and destroying them in seconds flat, but both of the aforementioned games forego combat in an attempt to provide a unique atmosphere. While Amnesia's environment might be quite sinister, Proteus is simply a quiet getaway from your problems. It could also be said that this is an allegory for the games industry as a whole – Proteus also lets you escape a lot of the violence and such that plague video games today.
One game looks to mix these two design perspectives. This title comes in the form of The Old City: Leviathan. This game, created by PostMod Softworks, will follow in the footsteps of previous games in the veritable genre, skipping combat altogether and once again opting to charge players headfirst into an atmosphere-driven experience. A trailer for the game, which we have provided below, is described by one commenter as, "Atmosphere: The Game" and we could not agree more.
PostMod Softworks gives some insight as to how this will affect gameplay through a short note in the video description:
"The Old City: Leviathan is an experiment in first person exploration that focuses entirely on story."
"Everything else is secondary. All that exists is you and the world. Set in a decaying city from a civilization long past, The Old City: Leviathan puts the player in the shoes of a sewer dwelling isolationist. You progress through the narrative by simply exploring the world."
