It’s Time to Rise From Dust

27 Jul, 2011

Xbox Live’s Summer of Arcade marches on tomorrow with an intriguing entry. This week all eyes turn to Ubisoft Montpelier, based in France, and their offering From Dust. Ubisoft’s unique take of the God game genre breathes a little bit of new life into this visually stunning arcade title, and the latest preview hidden in the pages of Edge’s July issue gives us a peek.

Cast as the god of a wandering tribe, your ultimate goal in this game is to guide your tribesmen from one part of each level to the exit, opening up the path by snatching up idols as you go. Gameplay consists of you setting waypoints for your tribe to follow along.

If you’re thinking they’ll get hung up on the smallest corners though, that won’t be a problem. The path your tribesmen take to your waypoint is marked with a shimmering white ribbon that will begin to glow red if they run across impassable areas. This will become part of the game’s challenge, as you need to figure out how to get your tribesmen wherever it is they need to be going, and then dealing with your objectives.

There are upgrades to be had, but your role will largely be a natural construction worker, moving pieces of the environment to another area to create a solution for your problems. For example, try sucking up some sand and tossing it into the river to form a bridge in which the people can cross over.

Another point of challenge is that none of your solutions are permanent, and it’s never going to be easy. Sand that you used to create a bridge might be swept away in the river’s flow, or lava could start tiny little brush fires. Of course, when missions start, you can always expect the unexpected, because it wouldn’t be called a mission if there wasn’t an obstacle standing in your way.

Sometimes though, these unexpected things might become your boon if you get stuck. It’s not too often a deity gets stuck somewhere, but it will probably happen once in a while during the course of From Dust.

To celebrate the arrival of From Dust, Ubisoft released the launch trailer today. Check it out here for a peek at what beauties you’ll be uncovering:

And of course, no launch is complete without a couple of screenshots. Don’t be fooled by the breath-taking beauty, because nature is just as dangerous as it is gorgeous: