I basically know enough about chess to be dangerous. I know the rules, but once I get past the first few moves, I’m just flying by the seat of my pants. Not thinking two moves ahead or anything like that. Still, even when I was younger, I always wondered if you could make a game like chess, but something that involved more than just straight capturing. If two pieces occupied a square, for example, have them fight it out in some way to see who got it. Yeah, there was Archon, which was a classic, but it had its own pieces and its own unique board and rules. I wanted something more than chess.

Well, almost 25 years later, that dream may have come true in SouthPeak Games’s upcoming title Battle Vs. Chess. To get the obvious out of the way, yes, you can play it like normal chess if you choose. Captures will result in nifty animations of the untimely demise of the captured piece. And the Fritz 11 system of AI is used, which is the same used in tournaments and provides 10 levels of difficulty. We were told that this game can beat grandmasters.

But that’s not really what Battle Vs. Chess is about. If you want stylized chess, knock yourself out, it’s here. Action Mode, though, is where the meat really is. Best of all, it’s not just a one-trick pony of adding a one-on-one battle system. There are a number of variations on the Action Mode system. You have your campaign mode, which will involve surviving a number of different challenges like promoting a Pawn to a Queen, or trying to checkmate your opponent’s King with just a King and Pawn.

As for the battle system, there are a number of different variations there as well. You can choose to have a capture result in a four-on-four battle with the participating pieces dependent on the main pieces involved in the capture. So, going in Queen vs. Pawn would put the Pawn at a significant handicap, for instance. The weighting is loosely based on the standard chess point value system. You can also have one-on-one duels and other types of battles. Also, the rules can vary, with options like the loser losing the piece outright, the “capturer” not losing their piece, but having to retreat if they are unsuccessful, etc. The sheer depth of the entire battle system was a pleasant surprise, and looks to address what could have been a quite stale system.

Of course there will be multiplayer with a ranking system, and you’ll also have the option to do various “One Timers”, which are one-off puzzles that you can jump into quickly. All in all, a solid first impression, especially all the options that you have in the battle system. The team were really looking to engage the casual chess player who knows the game, but isn’t necessarily the hardcore kind who plays in online tournaments and solves the daily chess puzzle in the newspaper. So far, so good. We’ll see how the finished product looks when it drops this Fall.