When thinking about different genres in gaming and the players who enjoy them, most people wouldn’t think there’s much crossover between cover-based shooters like Gears of War, and top-down dungeon crawlers like Champions of Norrath.  Bethesda Softworks and Interplay, however, are banking on that thin slice of Venn Diagram, and have announced Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, a co-op fantasy action-rpg influenced by both classic dungeon crawlers and modern shooters like Gears, alike.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is a third-person co-op fantasy action-rpg published by Bethesda Softworks and developed by inXile Entertainment, the developers behind 2004’s The Bard’s Tale, for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PCs.  Players will assume the roles of E'lara and Caddoc, a female archer and male warrior, respectively, as they battle all manner of foul beasts, gain and level-up new abilities, and, presumably, liberate the contents of countless chests, barrels, and crates.  Producer Brian Fargo (The Bard’s Tale series, Fallout series) promises a heavy focus on "co-op at a distance,” a gameplay mechanic that eschews what he calls “tethering of players.”; “We took a different approach; we wanted to spread the players out, use the environment, use the world. So the spells and skills that we created are based on these ideas."  This mechanic will be used, in part, for co-op puzzle solving, but players will also split off from their partners for tactical reasons, like providing cover from above with E’lara while Caddoc slices through enemies from up close.  Along with the game’s focus on cover, tactics like these are sure to draw comparisons to Epic Games’ blockbuster shooter series.

This console generation, in my opinion, has been short on great dungeon crawlers, and Hunted just might be what I've been waiting for since 2005's Champions: Return to Arms.  So far, the screenshots look great, with some interesting character design and lush environments, and the development team has plenty of experience in the genre, so it's easy to be optimistic about the game's chances.  No release date, or even release year has been given, but we'll be keeping a close eye on Hunted: The Demon's Forge, and bringing you any new information as we get it.

Press Release follows

Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax® Media company, today announced that it will publish Hunted: The Demon’s Forge™, a third-person co-op fantasy action game. Hunted is being developed at inXile Entertainment for the Xbox 360®video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Games for Windows.

inXile entertainment was founded in 2002 by industry veteran Brian Fargo. During his distinguished tenure in the video game business, Fargo has been behind some of the greatest fantasy game franchises of all time including The Bard’s Tale®, Baldur’s Gate®, and Fallout®. Hunted’s development is being overseen by Fargo while Michael “Maxx” Kaufman serves as the game’s Director. Previously, Kaufman served as Art Director on such titles as Kingpin™: Life of Crime™, Redneck Rampage and the award-winning Return to Castle Wolfenstein® at Gray Matter.

“We are thrilled to be working with Bethesda Softworks on this upcoming release that takes us back to our roots,” said Brian Fargo, Founder of inXile Entertainment. “Bethesda’s track record speaks for itself and the game we are developing for them is no exception.”

“inXile has an extremely talented team and we couldn’t be more pleased to have them working on one of our upcoming titles,” said Vlatko Andonov, President of Bethesda Softworks.  “We believe gamers will be really excited about what these guys have in store for them.”

[Sources - Kotaku, Destructoid]