Testament: The Order of High-Human PC Preview

Fairyship Games was founded in 2017 by Moe and Joey Naderi, two aspiring developers who wanted to make a mark in the world of gaming. They first released Shame Legacy quite recently in 2023, a first-person survival horror that had endless potential but wasn’t too well received. However, Fairyship Games’ ambition was not deterred at all, and they’re still carrying on with development for their second release, Testament: The Order of High-Human, an action adventure with a healthy dose of RPG on top that looks set to dethrone a few top games in those genres.

 

To give a little backstory on Testament: The Order of High-Human, it’s an original story that takes place in Tessara. Once ruled by Aran, the king of the high humans, he was betrayed by his brother, Arva. This caused him to lose his divine powers and left him mortal, though his story wasn’t over so easily. Even though the world has been plunged into darkness, monsters rose up, and all hope seems lost, Aran has to set out to regain his lost powers to confront his brother and restore Tessara to its former glory.

Right from the start in Testament: The Order of High-Human, you will be faced with obstacles, puzzles, various enemies, and so much more. Luckily, you’re not getting thrown into the deep end as you’ll slowly be introduced to the world and its many mechanics. However, you’ll first meet Nature Father who seems to have found you and is taking care of you. Unfortunately, his plans for you are far from benevolent purely based on how he talks to you, but maybe he’s just misunderstood.

Things carry on from there to you, leaving what looks to be a monster home, but also, remember that lack of benevolence from earlier? Well, Nature Father decided that you’re now the enemy and will stop at nothing to either crush or poison you with various parts of nature. While the display of it all happening is really beautiful, it’s also a death you should probably avoid. However, this is also the part of the tutorial where you discover sprinting. While the way the tutorial is designed might seem odd or even tedious by only gaining access to certain things as you progress through it, it’s also a nice way of pacing your way into the game while getting a feeling for everything and the world you’re in.

 

Shortly after your first run-in with Nature Father, possibly by a stroke of good luck, you’ll find a sword. This is also your first of 3 weapon types – Sword, Bow and Magic. Granted, magic isn’t just a weapon as it can also be used for beneficial purposes too like shielding. Though, unlike the bow and magic, your sword isn’t limited to arrows or Spirit Essence (Mana). All it takes is just some timing to make the most of each swing. As explained in-game, timing each swing will create combo attacks, while just wild button mashing will break the combo and reduce the chance of staggering your enemies.

Another great thing about your sword is the stealth aspect it brings in. Not all fights have to be fights, if you can sneak up on your unsuspecting target, you can also cut them down with a quick stealth attack. However, this does take some patience as you’ll sometimes need to keep track of the enemy's movements. On the off chance that you need to sneak around, you’ll also have to keep in mind that the enemies around you might take notice, but not instantly, at least. Instead, they’ll have a convenient symbol above them that will highlight in yellow or red to indicate how much attention you’ve drawn to yourself.

Next up on your rise to power is the bow and arrows. Simple, silent, and deadly… Provided you’re good with headshots. Landing your arrow anywhere else might not kill your target on the first shot and will instead alert everybody as to where you are and all hell will break loose. Unfortunately, your arrows are limited, so you can’t just fire off a wild volley of arrows, but this is a nice touch to the game that makes you look at other options to get past certain obstacles.

 

Then you get magic. This is where things become a little hairy because magic can be used to attack or give yourself various buffs and boosts in the form of shields and changes to your melee attacks. Though to sweeten the deal, magic is also incredibly high damage from the looks of it, but it does come with the caveat of being limited by mana. While you can restore your mana with Condensed Spirit Essence, one of many consumables found throughout the world of Tessara, though a passive slow recharge on mana would have been an amazing feature to have, as consumables aren’t as common as they could be.

Now, while the weapons and the many different ways to slaughter your enemies are fun, it would be dreadfully boring if there wasn’t something extra to grow them. Luckily, new abilities, spells and attacks aren’t hidden behind books or items. Everything you could ever want is on the skill tree and the leveling system. What makes this so important is that leveling up will give you a skill point you can use on the skill tree, but depending on where you spend the points will also give that respective weapon a power boost too.

One thing that sets Testament: The Order of High-Human apart from other games like it is the world design and the use of puzzles. Just from the preview alone, it’s clear that the world has a strong foundation built on combat and exploration but also puzzles that vary in size, from basic light puzzles to moving platforms to get around the room. This alone is no small feat to achieve but it seems to have been perfectly implemented into the world and the storytelling of the game.

 

Just at first glance, it’s clear as day that there won’t be a shortage of lore to find either, as quite early on in the game, you’ll start finding books that could be journals, stories, etc. While this might come off as insignificant, lore is what builds the world but also what adds so much depth to the world around you. However, it can also sometimes be incredibly pointless… Which direction the lore of Testament: The Order of High-Human goes will have to be seen in the final release of the game.

We’ve only had access to the preview version of Testament: The Order of High-Human, but it’s actually quite impressive just how much detail is being poured into this game. Right from the start, you’ll see that a lot of care went into creating the environments, characters, and even small things like lit torches. Unfortunately, the HUD does need a bit more polish as it does look a little archaic. Opening up your inventory, you’ll see Aran in his current state, though it is lacking in animation. This isn’t to say it won’t be implemented later on, even though it does look like it will be since there are also some background smoke effects for him. Our best guess is that a lot will still change, and this game will probably get a lot more polish before it gets released into the wild.

On the sound design front, it’s actually quite inspired. The background music and environmental sounds help to build an amazing ambiance, and when combined with the voice acting, it really pulls the game together in all the best ways. Testament: The Order of High-Human seems to feature an original soundtrack aimed at the theme of the game; however, the music also shifts between combat and non-combat which is a nice touch.

 

Overall, Testament: The Order of High-Human looks like it’ll set a great example for games in terms of optimization and quality, but also innovation. It takes inspiration from several genres and mixed them together to create something amazing in both music and environmental design. With only a short preview to run with, it looks like Fairyship Games is planning to rock the gaming community to the core while redeeming themselves at the same time.

Jay Claassen (@R3GR3T_3NVY)
Editor, NoobFeed