Omensight tasks you with stopping an apocalypse, a war and a murder

Omensight is an upcoming indie action game labeled as a time loop action murder-mystery.

I love a good murder-mystery. I’m also quite fond of the movies Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow, so I guess you can say I’m partial to the whole time loop concept.

After watching the first Omensight gameplay video, recently released by developer Spearhead Games, I can say for sure that Omensight is right up my alley.

The narrator, a level artist by the name of Keisha Chauvin, starts by giving us a little background – something to do with a war between to realms, an angry god, and a pending apocalypse.

You are the Harbinger, a mystical warrior on a mission to stop the world from ending. To do that, you have to solve the murder of the godless priestess; no matter how many tries it takes.

But all that doesn’t matter right now – we’re here to see some gameplay.

Omensight includes elements of world exploration, combat and choice. As we see early on, you get to choose whether to help a group of soldiers or leave them to die at the hands of an unknown enemy. The Harbinger in the demo decides to help, and we get a glimpse at the combat system.

Combat seems pretty straightforward at first – you strike, you dodge, you dash, and you kill monsters. But as the demo progresses, we see the Harbinger using some interesting abilities. In one combat scenario, we see the warrior freezing time so they can kick an explosive barrel into a stone collum that then drop on top of some enemies to kill them.

We later see who we can combine different combat abilities to dispatch of enemies quicker, and in a spectacular manner.

But choice continues to play a significant rule in the game. Your primary goal is to solve a murder after all, and there seems to be a lot of suspects. You need to decide who to trust, who to confront, and how.  Each choice will affect the rest of the game, though I’m not entirely sure how that works when you’re stuck in a time loop.

There’s also the ongoing war to consider. In the video, we see the Harbinger traveling with companions belonging to opposite sides of the conflict. Will we have to show our allegiance to one faction, or is everyone just a means to an end?

Omensight shares some similarities to Spearhead Games’ previous game, Stories: The Path of Destinies. While Stories was a fun little game, it did suffer from very repetitive gameplay and levels – thanks to its time loop mechanic.

The way Spearhead Games are hoping to avoid this trap is by allowing you to explore different areas of the kingdom with different companions each time.

Between one time loop to the next, you arrive at the roots of the tree of life – a sort of hub area where you can upgrade your character and go over everything you know about the murder-mystery so far. There you can also plan your next move and decide which clue to follow this time.

You can share critical information with the NPCs you encounter using the Omensight ability. Having a crucial piece of info can change the outcome of a time loop and reveal more clues. You can even get individual characters to join you that way.

So far, I love a lot of what this game has to offer. A murder-mystery where you actually need to talk with suspects, uncover their lies and choose which narrative to believe is my kind of challenge. Add the “easy to learn, difficult to master” combat and the stunning design, and you got yourself an action game worthy of your attention.

Omensight is scheduled for release on PC and PlayStation 4 on May 15. The game is currently available to pre-order on Steam, or through the PlayStation Store.