oday Namco announced Death By Degrees – a third-person action adventure featuring Nina Williams from the Tekken series. Members of the Death By Degrees development team have previously worked on the Tekken series.

Set prior to the first Tekken game this prequel to the series focuses on how Nina's got involved in the Iron Fist Tournament. Nina's back-story centers on a secret organization called Kometa, Kometa wields a powerful weapon named "Salacia" and it is feared as a deadly terrorist threat. The game begins on a cruise ship, where Kometa executives have gathered in anticipation of an underground fighting tournament. To investigate the organization, Nina Williams enters the tournament and becomes its champion.

The game begins with Nina imprisoned on the cruise ship, where she learns that a fellow agent has gone missing, and she is ordered to make sure that the mission is a success.  Players must use Nina's Tekken fighting skills, including evil mist and her signature attacks, throws, and submission moves, but now use weapons including multiple guns and swords. Death By Degrees features an advanced control system utilizing the right analog stick to defeat enemies to gain experience points, unlock new moves and techniques.  By building up Nina's "Focus Gauge" players can execute a special attack that offers an X-ray view of an opponent's body as internal organs are rocked by Nina's blows.

Death By Degrees will feature an hour of real-time pre-rendered movies which will reveal the plot, which were created by Shirogumi Inc., the company responsible for the CG movies in Resident Evil Zero, and Onimusha 2.

Tekken fans can expect over 20 hours of gameplay in the main game, as well as other modes including Challenge Mode, Anna Mode, Sniper Mode, Hover-camera Mode, and Puzzle Mode.  Tekken favorites Heihachi and Anna Williams will also make appearances in the game.

Death By Degrees heads to the PlayStation 2 this fall in North America, and Q1 2005 in Europe.  We’ll have much more on Death By Degrees in the coming weeks, including hands-on impressions from Namco’s recent gamers day.