It may have taken some time but, finally, fans of Eichiro Oda's beloved pirate adventure series One Piece are getting an action game that promises to let them live out their fantasies of controlling Monkey D. Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates as they adventure on the high seas. Excitingly, One Piece: World Seeker is a also an open-world experience, and Hiroki Koyama, who has produced the anime series, will be working on the title to ensure that it looks and feels authentic.
At Gamescom 2018 we got to spend some hands-on time with One Piece: World Seeker, exploring a small island and battling Marines. Enemies come in numerous types, with some firing guns from a distance and others walking around with shields, for example. Of course, very few can stand up to the overwhelming strength of Luffy, whose Gomu Gomu abilities shred their the majority of Marine goons with relative ease. As well as dishing out a standard flurry of punches and kicks--often ending with the Gomu Gomu no Gattling Gun, Luffy can also strike enemies with precision punches. By holding down a trigger button, players get an over-the-shoulder perspective and a targeting reticule to select enemies to throw jabs at. You can also charge up a single, powerful strike to a bunch of damage.
Luffy is also able to use his unique, stretching limbs for traversal. While sprinting around, he's able rapidly spin his legs to propel him forward, but the most useful skill is definitely his ability to stretch out his arms and grab on to grapple points in the distance. This is incredibly useful for getting around quicker and also getting vantage points to scope out enemies and objectives. He can also utilize Haki skills to reveal the location of nearby enemies or to slow down time briefly and give him the edge in battle. You can see all that and more in the gameplay video above. One Piece: World Seeker is set for release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC in 2018.