E3 2011: Heroes of Ruin Takes a Swing at 4-Player Diablo on 3DS

n-Space should be a familiar name to Nintendo fans. The studio developed the Gamecube shooter Geist with oversight from Shigeru Miyamoto and in the years since have made the well-regarded Call of Duty games for DS. Heroes of Ruin is the studio's first project for the 3DS and will be published by Square Enix. It promises to offer a nifty variation on the loot-crawling RPG with 4-player co-op and the added flourish of 3D visuals.

Ruin starts with a simple conspiracy, the founder of the city Nexus has been cursed and a group of adventurers set out to discover who did it and why. While the game can be played solo it's meant to come to life when questing together with other players. There are four classes in the game that will each have unique characteristics. In my demo I played as a Vindicator, a big wolf-like warrior with a massive sword and the potential to learn healing abilities.

The game controls are simple, the A button does a basic attack, which can be strung out to perform combos. The X, Y, and B buttons do special moves that can be upgraded as your character levels up. For my Vindicator I had a dash attack, an area attack, and Shockwave attack that sent an expanding cone of damage out from my sword. The right shoulder button triggers a dodge move or, if held down, blocks. Pushing the d-pad left or right replenishes health and energy for pulling off more specials.

One of the Ruins' best features is a Rogue-like approach to level generation. Quest levels will be dynamically generated every time you return to them so you'll never have the same experience twice. The game will also offer some interesting connectivity options for loot-trading and new game content. The game will support the 3DS's Street Pass functionality with a feature called Trader's Network, which will allow players to pass loot to each other. All the loot you've sold back to the market in your game will be cued into the Traders Network and when you pass another 3DS owner with the game your sold loot will be flashed into that player's market.

Another feature n-Space is promoting will let players log into a Heroes of Ruin website to accept weekly challenges. Once you accept the challenge on the website you'll be able to go into the game to actually complete it, which will unlock new content both in-game and when you return to the website.


Ruin will also feature some standard RPG elements like a character customization feature that lets players tweak character's hair, skin tone, and tattoos. In the Diablo tradition, every new piece of gear you equip will be immediately shown on your character model to underscore the sense of uniqueness.

n-Space praised the advances made in Nintendo's online infrastructure on 3DS when compared to Wii and DS. The advances will allow players to connect for drop-in/drop-out co-op and allow for voice communication using the 3DS's built-in mic. Consequently, they've worked hard to make sure the game rewards cooperative play. One power earned later in the game will allow players to cast a healing circle around their character, which other players can stand in to regenerate health. Players can also coordinate different attacks for damage bonuses.

The 3D effect in Ruin is also a nice perk even if it doesn't dramatically change how the game is played. It feels like looking down into a shadowbox world, which is a fun way to think of an overhead dungeon crawler. The genre was an important part of the original DS library with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Rings of Fate, Shinren the Wanderer, Izuna: The Unemployed Ninja, among others. There aren't many entries in the genre for 3DS yet but Heroes of Ruin could be a good way to start.

Heroes of Ruin will be out in North America in early 2012.

• More 3DS & DS Previews
• Latest 3DS & DS News, Reviews, and Videos