Of Orcs and Men Gets a Proper Home

Of Orcs and Men has a fresh website and a brand-new trailer.

I talked briefly about this last year but for those who missed it, Of Orcs and Men is a fantasy RPG with a twist. The Empire of Man is waging a campaign of extermination and slavery against the green-skinned peoples of the South – orcs and goblins – and while decades of war have resulted in a certain unpleasant stability, a looming alliance between the Empire and the dwarves and elves threatens to upend that delicate balance. The only solution? Send the biggest, meanest orc of them all on a suicide mission to kill the Emperor before it can happen.

Of Orcs and Men looks like a pretty action-heavy RPG, which I suppose is about what you’d expect when your lead character is basically the Hulk with melee weapons. But stealth promises to be a big part of the action as well thanks to the presence of Styx, a uniquely talented goblin who’s everything that Arkail, the orc, is not: A silent, deadly master assassin, who can go places and do things that an orc never could.

The new trailer provides a more detailed look at the story but not much insight into how the game is actually played, and given that neither of the developers making the game, Cyanide S.A. and Spiders, have any major mainstream successes under their belts, there’s some room for doubt about how this thing will actually go. But I dig the concept so much that I can’t help but be optimistic.

Of Orcs and Men is slated to come out in September for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. To learn more about the game, check out the spiffy new site at oforcsandmen.com.