Though we haven't heard much, outside of an ocassional showing at E3 now and again, from developer Aurora44 and their upcoming co-op focused action RPG, Ashen, needless to say the game's desaturated aesthetic, almost monochromatic visual style and dungeon-crawling gameplay has made it one to watch among the current crop of independent games currently in development. And in the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine, the New Zealand-based developer has provided some insight into the nature of Ashen's co-op functionality -- specifically player communication...or lack thereof.

And as you might expect for a game tackling the popular action RPG formula as of late -- just like fellow upcoming games like Bandai Namco's own Code Vein -- Ashen will deliberately restrict player communication to such things as gestures; Aurora44 even going as far as to confirm that such things as voice and text chat will not be in the game. "We don’t have voice chat, or even text chat. We won’t even have user names- so when somebody’s playing in your game, you will have an array of gestures you can use and you will have to use those to communicate." Derek Bradely, Game Director for Ashen, explains.

As for this moment, Ashen still has no set release date but has been confirmed as arriving first for consoles on Xbox One alongside a release on PC sometime in 2018.