Were- is a first person sandbox game based with a strong story based around three young druids in a present to near future setting. The story is told by the three protagonists Damien, K'eyush and Meilin as they sit around a fire recounting the events. Damien is a young man from New York whose family had a heritage in druidism he was never aware of, he is a werewolf who struggles with the more primal side of his nature. K'eyush is a young Inuit women who was taught druidism by her grandmother, she is a werebear who spent great stretches of her childhood in her bear form and has trouble interacting with people and accepting responsibility. Meilin is a young Chinese women who is extremely outgoing and rebellious, often making rash decisions and using her new found powers to assist her in these actions. This has resulted in her having to leave China in the face of potential execution, she is a werecat whose were form shows as a tiger.
The three young druids are drawn to New York at the behest of the spirits of the earth to bring balance back to the city as a statement to all of humanity. To do this players must reclaim the city with natural forces essentially overgrowing territory to claim it. From here players are free to act as they feel is best.At the start of each chapter players will choose which protagonist they wish to play as, there choice will be both their narrator and their player character for the progress through this section, while every protagonists part of a chapter is entirely unique they all tie together to create one greater story. As players advance in the story the druids will unlock new abilities as they come to terms with their power, all player characters unlock these simultaneously so there is no concerns about characters that haven't been played being weaker than others.
Once players choose their protagonist they will enter the game world and be given a general task to perform along with some guidelines on how they might go about it. Druids recognize two principles of nature, Serenity (caring nature) and Primality (ferocious nature). Each of the characters interacts with these differently but can attune to them just as easily with each resulting in different outcomes where they are used, or if used equally will bring a degree of balance. For example a player may be tasked with reclaiming the statue of liberty. The Serene approach may wreath the statue in natural flowers as a statement of the beauty and love of nature whilst the Primal approach may summon powerful vines to rip the statue apart as a statement of wrath. As players progress a variety of groups will begin to interfere in their work. How players choose to interact with them is up to them, everything from close allies to mortal enemies is possible.
Combat involves using a variety of spells along with the protagonist's wereform to attack aggressors with the power you would expect of that form. Players have access to human, hybrid half human half beast and a full beast form all offering different play styles between magical methods and visceral combat.
Were- aims for a true sandbox experience reminiscent of a lot of the popular sandboxes players are expected to just mess around a lot. In every chapter the city is fully open for players to do as they please beyond the story and side quests will be available around the city to keep players looking for content and enjoying the experience of adventuring through the city as they slowly claim it . Backing this is a strong narrative experience built around a grey morality system where the ends almost always justify the means. Each character is a unique human with a complete personality that is developed and refined through the player's actions with the intent to develop bonds with at least one of the characters. As the story continues each protagonists story weaves together to end the narrative, this is hinted with very minor details but should be kept relatively hidden until the final reveal to give the players a moment of clarity where everything falls into place which a unique and emotionally poignant ending to reward the involvement the game endeavors to foster in character development. To aid in this the protagonist will narrate the story elements as they happen, this lends a degree of immersion to the story but most importantly allows for deviations from the correct story tree without breaking immersion, even death can be explained by the narrator as an "oh sorry, that's not quite how it went" or something similar to keep the player involved in the story telling.
●Unique narrative style
●Free roaming sandbox
●Visceral first person combat system
●Interesting aesthetic created from a city being taken back by nature
