Beowulf screenshots make my inner bookworm squirm with delight

In the days before videogame journalism owned my soul, I could often be found in used bookstores perusing shelf after shelf of aging tomes, looking for that lit nerd’s holy grail so often hidden there. Although the harsh reality of teaching salaries has come to crush the dream that I might one day talk about books for a living, I have to say I get a special twitch when I see classic literature worked into the modern world in creative ways. Enter Beowulf, Ubisoft’s foray into the “reinvention” of the hack-and-slash genre. Big talk, Ubi!

At any rate, some new screenies are out and they look yummy. The game follows Beowulf through his travels and supposedly will include twenty years of his tale not included in the upcoming film. I can’t help but wonder: Since the conclusion of the epic poem results in Beowulf’s death, how will Ubi handle that conclusion in game form? Games have gotten more experimental in the last decade, but it’s not exactly fulfilling to spend thirty plus hours with a character only to see him bite it in the end. It comes out in October for 360, PS3, PSP and PC, so I suppose we’ll know soon enough.