A Stunning Character Action Game With The Spectacle Of Final Fantasy XVI

China has always been a massive gaming market. Its biggest sector for years, however, has been the mobile market, which inadvertently silos it off from other gaming-heavy regions of the world that primarily play on consoles and PC. There’s been a shift, though. Black Myth: Wukong, which launched in 2024, sold more than 30 million copies, spotlighting that the console- and PC-forward market for Chinese-developed games has extreme potential. It’s why a lot of Chinese developers who have spent years carving out a space for their names in the mobile market are transitioning to triple-A experiences – Black Myth: Wukong bolstered a lot of confidence throughout the country, from what I’ve learned from various developer interviews there. Look no further than October’s Phantom Blade Zero, an exciting Chinese-developed action game coming from former mobile developer S-Game. 

All of this is to say that I recently traveled to Chengdu, China, to bear witness to another Chinese studio breaching into the larger triple-A gaming market, this time at the hands of newcomer studio Eclipse Glow Games. Though it’s a Tencent-backed studio formed just two years ago, many of its developers have experience on series like Assassin’s Creed, Persona, For Honor, Like a Dragon, and more. That pedigree was on display during my two-ish hours of hands-on gameplay with Eclipse Glow’s debut game, Tides of Annihilation. 

Tides of Annihilation features all the spectacle and grandeur many of these action games coming out of China as of late wow players with, but it’s intentionally setting its sights on Western markets more than previously mentioned games like Black Myth: Wukong and Phantom Blade Zero. Eclipse Glow is purposefully doing so by blending the pageantry of Chinese action games with the Arthurian legend – the medieval tales about King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and Camelot and all that. That’s a distinct departure from the aforementioned action games, which feature narratives set in and around Chinese mythology, legend, and history. Tides of Annihilation director Ary Chen tells me the studio hopes to reach a more global audience by telling what it thinks is a more global story, set in the recognizable tourist destination of London.  

While I absolutely recognized many parts of London highlighted during a tour of the studio and the subsequent gameplay preview event, such as the British Museum (though it’s dubbed the Great Russell Museum in Tides of Annihilation, presumably due to copyright reasons), there’s a lot I didn’t recognize. That’s because the fantasy realm of Avalon is literally crashing into protagonist Gwendolyn’s London, creating this unique mix of modernity and fantastical romanticism. The result is beautiful, though I’m not surprised the game looks as great as it does – Chinese developers place a heavy emphasis on awe-inspiring visuals, and Eclipse Glow is no different here. 

I recently wrote a cover story for Onimusha: Way of the Sword, as it’s the latest game to grace the cover of Game Informer, and one of the things I appreciated most about playing that game was just how complex its combat systems are. I didn’t immediately know what each button does, and it took longer than a few minutes to grasp how it plays. Tides of Annihilation left me feeling the same, and I’m thrilled about it. As a fan of character action games, I feel familiar with most combat systems after just a few minutes of play, which admittedly takes the wind out of the gameplay sails. I spend all two hours of my time playing Tides of Annihilation trying to understand how its various combat systems work, and it’s my biggest takeaway from this preview: the bar for entry is low, but the ceiling for mastery is high. 

Yes, you can absolutely button-mash your way through most encounters (though there’s no shot this method will work on the Elite-tier boss I faced), but closer attention comes with a satisfying payoff. 

Gwendolyn controls like any other character-action protagonist, though I wish she ran a little faster and her double jump had more horizontal movement. Basic attacks are linked to the X and Y buttons on the Xbox controller I use. You counter with RB, the same button that you use to execute an enemy after taking down their stagger bar. And you have an ultimate-style attack called a Burst Attack available after building up enough Burst in an on-screen UI bar, activated by pressing both sticks. However, the d-pad lets you rotate through various Knights (of the Round Table) that fight alongside you in combat. 

I only have a couple in my suite of knights, but the differences between them are excitingly vast. One is great for more ranged attacks, while the other is better for close combat. You use them by pressing your attack buttons at the same time as other buttons on the controller. The result is a combat suite of actions that doubles, if not triples, in size, and I like that even after two hours of gameplay, I still feel I have so much to learn about using these knights correctly. 

I use these knights and Gwendolyn’s various equippable swords and armor pieces to defeat all manner of enemies inside the Great Russell Museum. While a museum isn’t the most unique stage, Eclipse Glow uses the concept to make an awesome first impression. Home to Egyptian, Chinese, and Japanese exhibits, among others, the game adapts to wherever you are in the museum. In the Chinese section, I encounter the Martial Saint statue (ironically, the Martial Saint is the legend who trains Gwendolyn in the tutorial), enemies rooted in Chinese design, and music infusing Chinese instrumentation into the general Great Russell Museum ambiance. In the Japanese exhibit, I am transported to a special realm to fight Geraint, a hulking samurai who transforms into an Oni demon in Phase 2 of the fight. 

Geraint tested my abilities the most, requiring a distinct use of specific knights to counter moves. It also required me to counter basically every unblockable red attack thrown my way and double jump over every yellow attack, too. The fight, like the other bosses I face, is full of spectacle, with mid-fight cutscenes that play like movie setpieces. Dragons swirl through the air and attack each other, while Gwendolyn and Geraint cross swords, and the cinematography matches the excitement. 

Between bigger boss fights, I defeat mob enemies, collect new themed outfits for Gwendolyn (called Regalia here), and solve environmental puzzles to open chests. I collect swords with different abilities and unlock and find badges that add special effects. I use the Bloodbound badge to increase my damage output and give me life steal (gain health when attacking enemies), but it causes my health to constantly decrease, in tandem with another that increases my life steal by 25% but restricts use of health-gaining potions. The resulting kit makes me play aggressively, as the only way to gain health is to get right into the action, and I like how different it feels from my Gwendolyn moments prior, when those badges weren’t equipped.

I find myself swapping weapons, armor, and badges in and out depending on the threat ahead of me. For example, I need my potions to defeat Geraint (he hits hard!), but against Anubis, I stick with the aforementioned aggressive build. Anubis is another spectacle-infused fight, as the Egyptian god fights like an Egyptian warrior infused with the armor of the Arthurian legend, which is to say he uses the magic you’d expect of a god, but also slashes and combos you like a true knight. He isn’t quite Steampunk, but his design is somewhere in that realm, and it is a unique take on the god of death. I also like how Anubis changes how I approach combat. Because he can summon special barriers that can only be crossed by dashing through, I have to pay close attention to my movement and location in the fight. This, in turn, changes how I use my d-pad knights, as my positioning is constantly changing. 

Gwendolyn and her strange and quirky companion Niniane, who can also transform into a bird somehow, are after a Grail Shard (a piece of the Holy Grail), and after defeating Anubis, the Great Russell Museum transforms into a building inexplicably placed in the deserts of Egypt – the Great Pyramids can be seen floating behind it. I make my way inside, ignoring the side content and exploration present here due to time constraints (though a fellow journalist at the event tells me he found chests, puzzles, and a side boss to defeat here), and soon come across the final boss of this preview: Mordred. 

Like Gwendolyn, she's a young woman who can tap into extraordinary Arthurian powers to use alongside her standard weapons. In the Arthurian legend, however, she is a he, and he is the traitorous nephew of King Arthur – he’s one of the main villains of the tale. She’s not after me, though – she wants Niniane. Unwilling to give her up, and after the Grail Shard Mordred is holding, Gwendolyn rushes in to attack. The ensuing fight between these two women starts pretty standard as they trade sword blows. But after I take down enough of her health, she summons the Pendragon (who might be a reference to Uther Pendragon, the once-king and father of King Arthur), and the boss fight becomes lil old me versus a gigantic magical dragon. The mid-fight cutscenes return, and I continue to be wowed by what I see. Doubly so, because the combat that comes after these scenes plays just like these cutscenes – it’s larger-than-life, full of spectacle, and reminiscent of the scale I haven’t seen since Final Fantasy XVI’s boss fights (a big compliment in my book). 

After a fun platforming section that forces Gwendolyn to traverse across falling stone platforms to reach the Pendragon in time for the killing blow, I watch one final cutscene, and my preview is over. I immediately want to keep playing, but my playclock has reached zero, and I’m back to waiting until whenever this game, which doesn’t yet have a release date, launches. 

Mordred

Two hours is not enough to know whether Tides of Annihilation will be as good as the character action games it’s clearly inspired by, but it is enough to know that I want to play more (ideally, sooner than later). I’ll be diving even deeper into my thoughts, alongside interviews with the game’s director and producer, in a later feature coming in a future Game Informer magazine, so keep an eye out for that (and subscribe if you haven’t already). 

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