Never's End looks like Final Fantasy Tactics with thermodynamics instead of standard magic

A former Destiny developer is working on a tactical RPG where heat physics matter more than fire and ice spells.

Never's End is a new tactical RPG from studio Hypersect, led by a Destiny veteran. At first glance it looks like a refined, muted take on Final Fantasy Tactics – miniature characters on a rotatable 3D grid, a subdued palette, crossbow skeletons. But start playing and something far more interesting reveals itself.

The game's core mechanic is called heat transfer, and it works exactly as it sounds: click two tiles within the ability's range and move energy between them. One tile heats up, the other cools down. Overheat a tile and it'll ignite any flammable creature standing on it.

Cool one down enough and you get mist, or snow if the humidity is high enough. Moving heat also generates wind, which can push characters and objects around. Equipment can get wet or catch fire. It's a surprisingly functional application of thermodynamics in a tactics game, and it works remarkably well.

A good example from the demo is the fight against a skeleton king inside a crypt. Two of your four characters show up without weapons, and every bare-fisted punch against an armored skeleton costs a point of health. To compensate, you can redistribute heat from three tiles onto a single one near a pillar.

The payoff is twofold – an icy haze forms in the center of the chamber, lowering the accuracy of enemy ranged units, while a vortex pulls undead into the superheated tile. Skeletons slam into each other, and their wooden gear burns to ash.

The skeletons themselves are fireproof, but they're far less dangerous without weapons. The downside – as in Larian's games – is that fire likes to spread, so your own tank named Karl is now very much on fire.

Heat transfer is just the tip of the environmental interaction iceberg. The full game promises the ability to reroute waterways, raise stone pillars, and melt rock into lava.

Beyond that, in Never's End you can shove characters into traps and off ledges, throw objects and your own equipment, and use the skulls of fallen party members as improvised projectiles.

The action system within a turn runs on time and stamina bars, with initiative determining the order each individual character acts rather than whole teams moving at once. Weapons carry familiar traits – serrated blades cause bleeding, maces stun, spears strike two tiles away.

Battle maps connect in a way reminiscent of Supergiant's Bastion – approach the edge of one and you'll see a greybox outline of the next, including enemy positions and rewards. Developers promise an open world with rain-soaked jungles, scorching deserts, and frozen tundra, though none of that is in the demo.

The demo also doesn't touch on settlement management. Story-wise, the main character is a deathless warrior spirit made of molten silver who can touch NPCs to replace their souls, turning ordinary villagers into fighters. The catch: the more recruits you take, the stronger the undead blight in the world becomes. The game seems to be deliberately leaving open the question of whether the protagonist is actually the villain.

The Never's End demo is available on Steam right now. A full release date hasn't been announced yet.