CubeGame and the developers of UP Software today presented the first official trailer for Sword and Fairy 4: Remakethe remake in Unreal Engine 5 of the 2007 chapter of the long-lived RPG series, considered in China a sort of national equivalent of Final Fantasy.
“This single-player turn-based RPG is reborn in Unreal Engine 5 thanks to the latest technologies,” reads the statement from CubeGame. “Embark on a journey to find the immortals together with the Tianhe Yun team. Meanwhile, a long-hidden and sealed truth is finally coming to light.”
Is there also a bit of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?
The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4 is actually the fifth installment in the main series and serves as a prequel to the third game. The latest title, The Legend of Sword and Fairy 7, released in 2021 as the ninth major installment on PC, while an English version was released in 2022 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S under the name Sword and Fairy: Together Forever.
The remake will arrive on PC and consoles yet to be confirmedbut there is currently no release date. In the meantime, the video shown today offers a taste of the xianxia-style settings and the turn-based combat system, updated and expanded compared to the 2007 original with some new features, such as the possibility of dodge enemy attacks and perform parries.
Precisely these two additions to the gameplay, combined with a clean interface with dynamic camera changes, have already led several users to compare the remake to the recent and acclaimed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: there are those who speak of obvious inspiration, those who even speak of plagiarism, and those who, more ironically, suggest the birth of the “Expedition-like” subgenre.
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It must be said that, even if UP Software had actually introduced parries and dodges inspired by other games, talking about plagiarism would be out of place as well as premature: the authors of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 themselves have repeatedly admitted that they were inspired by the Final Fantasy series and other classics of the genre. Not only in style and gameplay, but also in some design solutions, such as contained and linear areas or combat confined to dedicated areas, useful for containing development costs.
