The incipit from a piece at Gamasutra:
Apotheon looks nothing like the last game independent developer Alientrap put out, Capsized — that title inhabited a verdant alien world, lush with detailed hand-drawn illustrations of the planet’s exotic flora.
This newest project more resembles the rash of silhouetted sidescrollers that have popped up in recent years, like Limbo, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, and Outland. But Apotheon stands out from that style by adopting an aesthetic that’s hardly been explored in games, the “Black Figure” paintings that adorn ancient Greek pottery.
It’s a striking look the Canadian studio might have never settled on if the team stayed with the project’s initial concept: a cyberpunk, sci-fi-themed open-world game with some mythological trappings.
Apotheon started as “space Greek mythology” before the studio dropped the “space” part and realized classical mythology alone is a great source for stories that translates well to video games, which the God of War series can attest to.
“The Black Figure pottery art style seemed like a no-brainer after that,” Alientrap artist and co-designer Jesse McGibney tells Gamasutra. “It’s simple to animate, bold and easy to read, transitions great into a 2D platformer perspective, and perfectly meshes with the narrative and theme. We were honestly surprised that hardly any games have used this style before.” […]
… there’s more at the original article, including the first ‘gameplay video’. It kind of reminds me of the opening of Disney’s Hercules flick years ago but is actually really neat. There is some unfortunate terminology (e.g. Greeks wearing “togas”) and one of the characters kind of looks like a Roman standard bearer, but those seem to be minor quibbles for this sort of thing …
rogueclassicism 