I never knew I wanted to be able to trap monsters in bubbles and watch them float away until I tried the demo for this upcoming magical FPS

Sorceress is shaping up to be a precious kind of game: The Dark Messiah-like. Arkane's sophomore outing is mostly remembered for its legendary kick ability, which could turn nearly any enemy into one of those supremely satisfying Source engine ragdolls with one or two good smacks, but it also had this beautifully anarchic approach to level design, with spike traps and bottomless pits everywhere. Individual rooms (like this one number with a swinging chandelier) from Dark Messiah were so distinctive I remember them all these years later.

Sorceress' demo, I'm excited to say, delivers not only the kick but the accoutrements I crave⁠—it's a really granular, system-driven game where you can pick up anything and combine powers together in interesting ways. The first good sign is that even the tutorial level is fun: it's a largely combat-free, exploration-focused climb down one cloud piercing fantasy tower then back up another.

When fights do happen, Sorceress pulls a trick from Breath of the Wild with copious generic, breakable weapons you're meant to pick up, use up, then move on from. I like this system as a way of encouraging improvisation on the fly, and from what I can tell, developer Wabbaboy has plans for more permanent weapons as well. My one complaint is that the standard mooks are a bit easy and insubstantial in a way⁠—I almost want their character models to be bigger and more imposing in addition to them being more of a threat.

Things really come to life in the demo's first full level, a sprawling, nonlinear castle ground that also gives you access to your first proper magic spells. Sorceress has the good kind of videogame magic, spells that transform the world around you and have multiple potential applications. One is a variation on a classic ice spell capable of freezing enemies. 

Your other starting magic is rather novel: a bubble gun that can send enemies, objects, or yourself floating up into the air⁠, while a combo with the ice spell turns the bubble