Sand Land's gameplay has been shown off at San Diego Comic Con, offering a promising glimpse of what's to come from the videogame adaptation of one of the Dragon Ball creator's lesser-known mangas.
The 12-minute gameplay clip starts with our protagonist, the demon prince Beelzebub, charging through the desert in a car before a giant worm takes pursuit – eat your heart out, Dune. The player soon takes over as we rush towards a small settlement.
Once we reach our destination, the game opens up. A mission to secure food and water from a town sends you out onto the open world, free to hop into melees with thugs and knick their vehicle. Doing so allows you to ditch your rundown car for a big ol' tank, which is what happens in the gameplay clip.
The dilly-dallying eventually ends when a gang of thieves set up a trap to puncture your car's tires to ambush you – yeah, even if you're in a tank or on foot. The fight takes you through more of the combat, adding the option to evade when not stringing together melee combos.
While what we see is clearly unfinished – especially from an audio standpoint – the clip doubles down on the open-world trappings of the game. It's always looked to be the case, though Sand Lands is often talked about as an action-RPG, so what we've got shores up the open-world shenanigans we'll be getting up to. Akira Toriyama's work across manga, anime, and games often boasts a sense of daft playfulness, and I hope Sand Land's open world captures that.
Sand Land is coming to PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, though no release date has been revealed.
Can't wait? Here are the best open-world games to play right now and completely forget real life exists.
