Those of us who had been following along closely with the development of Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm ever since its first announcement way back in August of 2016 were happy to see the game finally launch as part of Apple Arcade in September of last year, and since that time developer Cornfox & Bros. has launched a huge update dubbed The Golden Edition this past June adding all sorts of cool new stuff to the game. Being that there was a nearly 6 year gap in between the original Oceanhorn and the launch of Oceanhorn 2, I don’t think anyone was expecting a new game in the series anytime soon. But Cornfox surprised everyone today by announcing a nifty spin-off title called Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon which should be launching on Apple Arcade next month. Here’s some screens.
Cornfox describes the game as their “Dungeon Crawler take on all things Oceanhorn" and have designed it with couch co-op for up to 4 players in mind. It’s also described as a rogue-lite that can be played over quick sessions. Timeline-wise, Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon is set after the end of Oceanhorn 2 and takes place 200 years after the Catastrophe. The Realm of Arcadia has been splintered off into the many islands of the Uncharted Seas, and you’ll play as a group of adventurers who “set on a journey to restore the world to its former glory." How do you accomplish that? Well you have discovered the Chronos Dungeon and deep down in its belly lies an item called the Paradigm Hourglass which has the power to alter the course of history. So go grab that, change history so Arcadia doesn’t get fractured into bits, and save the day. Easy peasy.
Of course, it won’t be that simple. Nothing ever is. But that’s kind of the whole point of video games, and Cornfox says that more info and updates on Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon will be coming soon. According to the game’s App Store page the expected release date is January 8th so in the meantime drop by our Apple Arcade forums to talk about this one ahead of release.
This might be the first Apple Arcade title that has me interested and excited
There’s just a tiny number of games on the arcade that are actually worth playing, but not enough to have a monthly subscription. It would be awesome if they allowed you to buy the games individually. They’d definitely get some money from me if they did.
It has crossed over into worthwhile for me and my family at least. The smaller games that are not infected with micro transactions or ads are really, really nice for mobile play. Then, there are a few games more targeted to dedicated play time. I think the devs are still trying to figure out what works there. Obviously it's a different value proposition for everyone.
Games like this make me want a newer Apple TV just to smooth things out a bit in performance and load times (the sliced downloading can make it pretty terrible) and I'd love to couch co-op this one. I'm already playing some of these on my Mac. It's really starting to work. (And this is from someone who has and appreciates PS4, Switch, PC gaming with backlogs on all of them)
Good point about buying separately. Maybe after a period of time. I mean some of these games do get sold elsewhere anyway, might as well sell them on iOS, too. It might even help with marketing Apple Arcade because the monthly cost will frequently be less than what is charged for many of the games.