PSBlog Feed: Martial arts meet fluid platforming in Elta: Defy All Gods, with a free PS5 demo out today

[Commander Fury]

Take the punchy, fast-paced combat of a brawler, the tight platforming and exploration of a search-action game, and a cute dragon companion (who’s also the millennia-old god you worship), and blend everything together with a dash of anime flair. That is the recipe for Elta: Defy All Gods, our upcoming game here at Afterburner Studios, launching February 2nd, 2027.

Dive in with us as we explain how our action-platformer brings back the best from the classics while making it a fresh experience, what inspired us, and why you should jump into the free demo on PlayStation 5 today.

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A new take on action-platformers

Action-platformers have had a resurgence of interest in the last few years, providing an interesting mix of combat, exploration, and story, but few have tried blending explosive hand-to-hand fights with labyrinthian, non-linear exploration. Elta: Defy All Gods provides just that: impactful melee action, mixing martial arts and magic, broken up by flowing aerial platforming and discovery across three winding sci-fi worlds. The challenge lies in mastering both combat and navigation; juggling enemies in dynamic encounters across sprawling worlds that won’t always hold your hand.

The best way to explain our unique take on the genre is to coin a new term. We like to call Elta: Defy All Gods a “brawlervania”. Brawler enthusiasts will enjoy three martial art stances, each with their own skill trees, alongside magic systems to unleash built-up energy in massive attacks. Platforming players, on the other hand, will get a growing set of movement abilities with classic moves, such as the double jump, dash, wall run, and grapple. That’s not all though; Elta, your dragon, will be key, by giving you new unique abilities to hit harder and reach previously inaccessible locations.

The inspirations behind Elta: Defy All Gods

Veteran players will definitely catch nods to series we grew up with, like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, God of War, Darksiders, and Jak and Daxter. We take a lot of pride in honoring these classics, but we wanted to do more than just rehash them. To carve out our own identity within that familiar formula, we traded traditional weapon-based hacking and slashing for fluid, hand-to-hand martial arts. By weaving your dragon companion’s abilities right into your fights and platforming acrobatics, we hope to bring something fresh to the table. To find that specific energy, we also sought creative inspiration outside of the gaming realm entirely.

Moving to TV screens, shōnen anime, and especially Dragon Ball Z, have been a massive inspiration for us, echoing the power fantasy you can experience playing the warrior monk Victus. With such a heavy focus on melee combat, we also turned to Hong Kong martial arts movies, ranging from the Ip Man saga to Shaw Brothers’ classics. These influences have been wrapped in a painterly art direction that makes each vista look like living concept art. The sense of power you get while playing echoes the sense of scale you feel when taking in each landscape.

Reaching high ambitions as an indie team

Despite the big-budget games listed above, we are not a large studio by any means. With three co-founders and a dozen core members, delivering on this game’s promise has been a real challenge for us at Afterburner Studios. It’s one that required us to lean heavily on our background in indie development. We’ve taken lessons from our previous game into Elta, finding clever ways to achieve bigger things with our small-sized team. While we’ve stayed true to our vision of a modernized take on classic mechanics, Elta has gone through constant iteration over the course of the last five years to allow us to deliver the best versions of this game to players – both in world, gameplay and tone.

This was also made possible through a partnership with Focus Entertainment, the folks behind Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. By lending us their design, production, and QA experience, they allowed us to expand our vision and tackle a dream project – one that would only be possible with their support. Instead of getting slowed down by our ambitions, this fruitful partnership allowed us to double down on what we do best: crafting satisfying game feel.

Game feel as our main priority

At every stage of development, we’ve gotten the same feedback: this is a game that must be felt, controller in hand, rather than just watched. All our mechanics, in both combat and platforming, have been tuned to be as satisfying as possible. By using the haptics of the DualSense controller, landing punches and hitting platforms has a real tactile weight, resulting in a more immersive experience for PlayStation players. Ultimately, we want to create an action-packed adventure that puts fun first and continues to defy your expectations for what a small indie team can pull off.

And you don’t need to wait to try it out for yourself: our free demo is available today on PS5, allowing you to experience the very beginning of Elta: Defy All Gods. Retrieve the lost dragon-god you worship, brawl corrupted enemies in intense melee combat, and explore Lerna, a glacial world filled with hidden secrets, ancient ruins, and industrial remnants. The full game releases on February 2, 2027, and if you pre-order, you can get the Vanguard Armor, a special cosmetic skin for Victus.

Find Elta, face off against the gods and start the journey to bring salvation to your people with the free demo, available today on PlayStation 5.

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