In Nexon’sDNFuniverse, Khazan is a legendary figure who defeated Hismar the Berserk Dragon (alongside Ozma) and essentially fathered the Slayer faction. There’s a lot of narrative weight as a result on exploring this character in action RPG,The First Berserker: Khazan. However, it’s also designed to be a great standalone or entry point fortheDNFfranchise. It’s no doubt going to attract fans who want to learn what happened between Khazan and the Empire, but it’s likely caught the eye of a lot of Soulslike fans too.
There are a few minor differences betweenThe First Berserker: Khazanand the Soulslike genre, but the key similarity is the hardcore experience they provide. Game Rant was able to play a brief demo ofThe First Berserker: Khazanat Gamescom, where we found ourselves relying on skills developed fromBloodborne, Elden Ring, and every major Soulslike game out there. Those skills transfer here and players are rewarded in similar ways too.
The First Berserker: Khazan’s Opening Level Design is a Treat
While combat is obviously a big draw for any hardcore action RPG, that’s just one component of the formula.FromSoftware and Soulslike gamesare often praised for their approach to worldbuilding, where often stories themselves are obliquely told within its various corridors. That feeling was very prominent from the second we hopped intoThe First Berserker: Khazan,if more direct than the usual Soulslike title. The demo began with an imperial escort moving Khazan in a cage before he managed to break out. A sword calls to him, and as it fills his beaten body with power, we set out to escape a frozen mountain. As we moved through the level, taking out various wildlife and imperial soldiers, what really impressed us is what happened when we went off the beaten path.
The critical path was visually stunning, featured a plethora of enemies and encounters, and saw us encounter a mini-boss or two, but every time we left it, we were still engaged. When we hit dead ends, there were unique elements to it like an enemy ambush and/or a fun environmental hazard. Every little alcove or cave we could dip into led us to something, proving thatThe First Berserker: Khazan’s environments are multi-purpose. It’s not just there for players to rush through and face bosses; instead, it rewards players however they choose to engage with it. It lets stories within the environment develop as well.
A good example of that is one cave off the critical path saw an imperial soldier come running out it, screaming for help. We could’ve chose to ignore them, letting them die because they only had a sliver of health. The curious player can also go into the cave to see what damaged the soldier (after killing him, of course, because he turns hostile when he sees you). Inside was a massive bear that proved to be an enthralling fight. Its combat had us thinking it was a full-blown boss, if anoptional Soulslike boss, but we were proven wrong once we got to the real boss of thisFirst Berserker: Khazandemo. It was a big bear, but a small fish, compared to the actual boss.
The First Berserker Khazan’s Boss Fight Proves the Merit of its Combat
After we made our way through some more twists and turns on this level, we eventually came to the final boss: a gigantic ice ape with frozen shards across its body. Mechanically,The First Berserker: Khazanplays a lot like a Soulslike game. Players can progress their character, revive enemies, and restore their healing potions at a Bonfire-like equivalent, while combat revolves around finding the enemy’s rhythm and falling into step with it. The actual hits aremore hack-and-slash in presentationbut Soulslike in control, with players able to perform a variety of attack combos, dodges, blocks, and parries. The parries are super important inThe First Berserker: Khazanbecause they help break an enemy’s stance further, eventually opening them up to a flurry of attacks.
Otherwise, it’s important inThe First Berserker: Khazanto not get greedy. It’s about getting in, hitting the opponent a couple of times, hopping back, blocking (or preferably parrying), reading their patterns, and punishing them when they let their guard down. This remains true for the boss battle, but it was much more trying. Not only did it obviously have more health, meaning players had to maintain this rhythmic combat for longer, but its actions intentionally disrupted this with long combos, ranged attacks, and frozen status effects. Likethe best Soulslike games, thisFirst Berserker: Khazanboss fight was both incredibly challenging but also equally gratifying. We died to this boss a few times, but each time we made more progress, learned more of his combos and patterns, and advanced further.
Our final attempt against this boss was a huge rush as well. We were so involved that we didn’t immediately realize we were over time on our demo and running a little late toour interview withTheFirst Berserker: Khazan’s developers, and it was clear no one wanted to interrupt us. Our final attempt saw us get the ape down to about a quarter of its health when we rans out of potions, with us also being on the verge of death (not unlike the imperial soldier with the bear). We didn’t give up, instead finding ourselves relying on blocks and parries and falling in rhythm with the boss' timing even more intently. It was very much a scenario where missing a block or a parry would result in death, and we managed to keep it up as we whittled the enemy down. We survived onslaught after onslaught, parrying every ranged attack, blocking every hit, and dodging every single one of his jump attacks. Unfortunately, sometimes that victory proves elusive. He did manage to get a hit in, ending our run, but we had gotten him down from 25% of his health to roughly 5%.
This small section of the boss fight was enthralling, and while we lost, we felt a sense of pride in how much we managed to push ourselves and the gameplay. One more attempt and we would’ve won, and it was really hard to step away instead of trying again. That, in and of itself, is a hallmark of Soulslike/hardcore action RPG design, and it has us hopeful forThe First Berserker: Khazan’seventual release in 2025.
