Praey for the Gods, a chilly action adventure with more than a hint of Shadow of the Colossus, launches on Steam Early Access tomorrow, following a successful Kickstarter in 2016. Take a gander at the striking launch trailer above. 

It’s an open world romp populated by massive bosses that you can clamber up on your journey to discover why the heck the world is so cold. Perpetual winter might be all right if you’re a giant and covered in fur, but it’s less of a hoot if you’re a scrawny human kid. 

Like its inspiration, it's got an air of mystery, with only cryptic paintings hinting at what's going on, though I confess I'm far more interested in finding something to climb. Shadow of the Colossus’ quiet, melancholy story gets a lot of love, but honestly you could strip all that out and just leave the big beasties and it would still be great. The excellent Dragon’s Dogma proved that you don’t need good writing to make a game about climbing monsters wonderful. 

While Praey for the Gods looks promising, the name is like a knife to my eyes. It’s a shame, really. It was originally called Prey for the Gods, but Bethesda decided to throw its weight around and get litigious. The publisher claimed that the name infringed on the Prey trademark, and while it seems like a big stretch, developer No Matter Studios wasn’t in a position to challenge it. The game was funded by Kickstarter backers, and the team didn’t want to spend that money on a legal battle. 

No Matter Studios says that the core game is “solid” after two years of closed alpha and beta testing, and the list of features promised to backers has been implemented. The developer wants to do more, however, adding “additional content” as well as polish and optimisation. It’s expected to remain in Early Access between six months and a year. 

Shadow of the Colossus-inspired action-survival game Praey for the Gods has been trucking along since hitting its Kickstarter goal in 2016, with regular newsletter updates charting its progress (though it was last in the news for having to change its name after a trademark dispute with Bethesda). The latest newsletter doesn't show off any god-slaying combat, but it does show off something almost as enticing: a new climbing system that lets you grappling-hook to any rock surface and climb, climb, climb. Developer NoMatter Studios doesn't specifically call out The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as an inspiration, here, but it's a safe bet the freedom of the latest Zelda has made everyone reconsider the climbing in their games.

"A large part of our game is climbing and we weren’t using it as much as we should have," the newsletter says. "Then we ripped the band-aid off and just set all terrain to 'climb.' Currently, it means the player can climb the ground (we’ll fix that)... but overall it's awesome!... The freedom and the overall sense of exploration went through the roof. That, coupled with the improvement to the overall scale, really felt epic."

The update also shows off a new feature that goes hand-in-hand with climbing: a glider, which will let you parachute off high peaks after you've proven you can climb them. 

"I was worried it would break bosses or make them too easy," the newsletter continues. "It actually does the opposite and it makes the combat way more awesome and epic. Also, you now have a much more strategic choice to climb up and then try to leap to a boss with a little more range… This is something we’ve found makes the game and world come alive. With our storms you can quickly get into trouble as you think you are safe but the wind gusts will push you around and cost you precious stamina, and could also push you into harm. If you are lucky you can use your grapple hook with it and overall movement in the game feels insanely fun and freeing."

Praey for the Gods is one of the first games we've seen to directly channel part of what made Nintendo's latest Zelda game such a joy to explore, but it certainly won't be the last. You can read the full update here, which talks about other features coming to the (mercifully not Early Access) survival game as it progresses.

Earlier this week, Prey for the Gods developer No Matter Studios announced that it was changing its name to 'Praey for the Gods' because of a trademark dispute from Bethesda. This happened just before Bethesda released Prey, and because the publisher is a big company and No Matter is a small developer, some fans reacted negatively towards this news.

While some requested Bethesda to explain themselves in Facebook posts and comment sections, Slipgate Studios level designer Daniel Mortensen asked Bethesda's VP of marketing Pete Hines "How the heck can [he] even defend this?!" directly on Twitter.

"We really didn't have much of a choice," Hines responded. "If we don't oppose the mark, we risk losing our Prey trademark. We don't really have a choice."

Mortensen said he respected the honest answer, and when he said it "still" wasn't a great situation, Hines agreed. However, some took issue with Hines' reply, accusing Bethesda of going "overboard." 

"I think you probably assume [No Matter Studios] are just now hearing from us and this is the only thing we've tried. None of that is true," Hines said to one user. When others pointed out Bethesda's history in this, noting the incident with Minecraft developer Mojang's use of "Scrolls" in 2012, Hines said, "Mojang's trademark filing was rejected, and they basically licensed the right to use Scrolls from us."

"Scrolls would have superseded our Elder Scrolls trademark. Which is why we opposed it and trademark office rejected it," he added.

As Mortensen and Hines pointed out, this isn't a great situation. It's unfortunate that a developer can't use a common word in its game's name without legal matters arising. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak with much knowledge on the matter, but at least some good came out of the two companies' agreement.

No Matter can continue to use the original logo for Praey for the Gods, which features a woman kneeling in prayer instead of the letter "E" in Prey. Additionally, the team can continue to develop the game, which is good news for everyone. There's no release date yet, but we'll keep you updated as more information is revealed. For now, you can check out a recent video (below), which features pre-alpha footage of the protagonist climbing a big ol' bird. The scale of the scene is impressive.

Prey for the Gods was revealed in 2015 as a Shadow of the Colossus-inspired game about a "lone hero sent to the edge of a dying world" to investigate the cause of an eternal winter that's gripped the world. Last year, it earned more than $500,000 on Kickstarter, even as developer No Matter Studios did its best to keep a lid on sky-high expectations.   

Work has continued apace since then: Topics in the latest newsletter include the ongoing push toward a closed alpha release, changes to the control setup, and a more robust fire system. There is also, thanks to a trademark dispute with Bethesda Softworks, a new name—it's now called "Praey for the Gods." 

"We could’ve fought this and we did think about it for quite a while. Something like a trademark opposition can be long and depending on how far someone wants to fight it can be very expensive," the studio explained. "We didn’t want to spend our precious Kickstarter funds, nor did we want to have to ask for additional funds to fight this in court. Using backer money towards something that doesn’t go towards the development or backer rewards felt horrible to us. Even if we did win we’d have to spend a solid chunk of our funds and in our opinion it wasn’t worth it." 

No Matter said it gave thought to calling the game "Præy for the Gods," which as a Kickstarter backer pointed out looks a little less like a typo than the obviously-not-a-word "Praey," but ultimately decided that it would be too troublesome for users to enter in things like Google searches. (Let's see you produce "æ" without either a copy/paste or Google.) And as it turns out, Bethesda also opposed that implementation of the title, because it looks too much like "Prey." 

The good news is that the agreement gives the studio the right to continue using the logo, which features a woman kneeling in prayer in place of the "e" in "Prey." More importantly, it puts the matter to rest, so the developers can direct their full efforts toward actually making the game. 

"It was something that kept me up many nights, and no doubt shifted our focus from our game frequently. Worrying about the outcome if we went to trial, if we’d lose our fans or walk away from the mark and still potentially get sued for millions on trademark infringement. This is really something no starting company should have to deal with let alone a tiny team of 3," it wrote. "So the fact that we came out the other end intact still developing the game was a win. One that will no doubt shape our company moving forward." 

No Matter also shared some "pre-alpha footage fun," demonstrating a wild-looking ride aboard a great, beastly bird, which you can check out below. Pre-alpha or not, it looks pretty great. Praey for the Gods doesn't have a release date yet, but you can catch up with what's what at praeyforthegods.com.