Trine 4 is a side scrolling adventure game with puzzles, magic, and a mythical sense of adventure from Modus Games.

During E3, I got the chance to sit down and get a preview of the newest installment in the Trine series. This was followed by a demo of the game on Xbox.

I was immediately hooked when I saw how the player could switch between three characters at will in order to overcome obstacles and traverse a fairy-tale inspired forest.

The Trine series returns to the magic of 2.5D with Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince! The three heroes of the best-selling adventure series are back, sent on a quest to retrieve the troubled young Prince Selius.

Amadeus the Wizard, Pontius the Knight, and Zoya the Thief are joined together once again on a thrilling quest through fantastical fairytale landscapes teeming with danger.

Amadeus the Wizard can levitate objects and enemies along with summoning large cubes and spheres. He stood out as my favorite because of his magical nature but didn’t come across as over powered.

Zoya the Thief can shoot enemies and grapple onto edges by attaching rope to her arrows. Her archer outfit looks great and it was fun to aim with her bow though her shooting speed is low.

And Pontius the Knight can charge through foes and block projectiles with his shield. I’m not a huge fan of the traditional knight class but it was fun to discover his special ability called the Dream Shield which is a fun twist.

The developers let us know that each of these characters have different abilities that they can learn as the game progresses.  Zoya can use Fairy Rope, Pontius can learn the Dream Shield ability to leave a phantom shield in the air, and many more useful skills for solving puzzles.

They are clearly designed in order for the player to rotate between all of them to complete a puzzle and it feels satisfying to find the right steps and order of how to use them.

Besides the story mode, you adventure with friends in Unlimited mode which lets you choose multiples of the same character for some chaotic fun.

The game is inspired by Finnish nature according to developers and supports both single and multiplayer.

I was not familiar at all with the Trine series but caught on quickly to the possibilities along with some of my own questions of how abilities could be used together. But what the developers emphasized the most was that this game took the series back to its 2.5D gameplay roots with the most effort going into its story mode.

This will also have 20 levels making it the longest Trine game so far.

I was pleasantly surprised at what this game had in store since I had no idea what to expect. As someone interested in the world of fantasy, solving puzzles, and exploring the world, this was a delight to play.

Trine 4 releases on PC and all consoles September 30th.