Preview: Eternights Has Potential to Be a Quirky Hybrid

When I first saw Eternights at Sony’s State of Play 2022, I had no idea what I was looking at. There was high action gameplay, a motorbike summoned out of nowhere, a glimpse of a tentacle, and some light hand-holding. It felt like a weird blend of ideas, but one that potentially could be interesting.

Eternights bills itself as a dating-sim action game, one that combines elements of both genres to create something new. It’s a story about love being able to bloom even after the end of the world. While my limited time with the game answered some of my questions, I am left with several more. This is, surprisingly, a good thing.

Screenshot by Siliconera

In Eternights, you play as an unnamed protagonist living in Seoul. His friend Chani is pushing our boy to join some dating apps to improve his chances with the ladies. However, while he does land an initial date, it ends up canceled due to people turning into monsters and a gigantic wall surrounding the city. The protagonist and Chani soon find themselves trapped in an underground shelter with a K-pop starlet named Yuna and a drone operator telling them to evacuate to a train.

Along the way, the protagonist gets his arm sliced off by a mysterious woman, has a conversation with a girl on a boat in a void, and finds himself with a new light-based arm that can spontaneously summon a sword. Also, it turns into a tentacle at one point.

There’s a lot going on in Eternights, and these opening hours whisk you along without offering much explanation. All you know is, the three of you must get to safety and you may also need to save the world too.

Screenshot by Siliconera

Romance will also factor into this, according to all the marketing material. Sadly, for a game so heavily pitched as a dating-sim, my time with the game didn’t give me a lot of insight into this portion of the game. There is a segment where I had a conversation with Yuna that offered some limited choices, but it was brief. What was there felt a lot like a Persona Social Link or Confidant, though, so that’s a good start.

Instead of dating, much of the demo offered up a lot of combat and dungeon-based gameplay. Combat is simple, mostly focused on a simple combo and a dodge, but additional attacks can be unlocked. Dodging right as an enemy is about to hit you causes time to slow down, similar to Witch Time from Bayonetta.

The rest of the combat wasn’t quite as in-depth as Bayonetta, though. At times, fights could get a little repetitive, mostly hammering the attack button until you’re prompted to tap a shoulder button for a powerful attack. However, I imagine this will be less of a problem in the final game as more abilities unlock. Your allies can also help, although the only ability I had available was a healing aura provided by Yuna. All other abilities were enticingly empty slots on my ability menu. Presumably these will be filled in as you collect more party members and/or potential romantic partners in the final game.

Screenshot by Siliconera

There are some presentation issues with this Eternights build, however. The art style is good but there’s a lack of polish in the character models. They feel like they were lifted out of a PS2 era game, lacking the seamless cel-shading of more recent similar games. Facial animations were also a little odd, with characters often finishing sentences with their mouths hanging open in whatever shape their last word was in. I hope these visual quirks will be tidied up for the final release.

There is a lot of potential in Eternights. The beginnings of an intriguing story and a genuinely enjoyable combat system are both here, and the demo left me wanting more. I wish I could say the same about the dating mechanics, but they were so minimal in the demo it’s hard to have an opinion on them at this stage.

Overall, I still have a lot of questions about Eternights. However, many of the new questions are born out of a desire to see more of what proved to be a superb opening. I left the demo feeling like I hadn’t seen enough, and I wanted more.

There’s a charming quirkiness to Eternights that demands your attention. There’s a deep mystery where every character with the answers talks in riddles. And the combat is fun and has the potential to become even greater as more abilities are unlocked. Eternights is looking like it could be something special. We’ll find out for sure in September.

Eternights will be released for PC, PS4 and PS5 on September 21, 2023.