Baith Snell An' Keen: Of Orcs And Men

Mostly I'm impressed with the tenacity of the title, Of Orcs And Men. That, and my discovery that the green-skinned RPG is developed by spiders. I mean, we've played games made by bears, and a couple of flops from raccoons, but spiders! I've been waiting so long to see what those industrious beasties could do. And it seems their first high-profile project is... wait, sorry, someone's talking in my ear... Oh. Spiders. Well, good.

In fact, the audaciously named RPG is confusingly credited to two developers. For "Concept and Production" it's Cyanide Studios, they behind Blood Bowl (and, I've just noticed, A Song Of Ice And Fire - will investigate), and for "Realization and Development" it's Spiders. Their name just thrown into the press release without explanation or a link, leading to my oh-so easily made mistake. I want to like Spiders just because of their name, but that competes with their website having a tab titled "Solutions". They previously worked on Faery: Legends Of Avalon, which came out a couple of weeks back, but isn't available online until Friday.

So, Orcs. Along with Goblins they're being oppressed. We're told it's,

"a brutal world at war, where the Empire of Men’s oppressive threat looms over the territories of the Orcs and the Goblins. Goblins are systematically persecuted and slaughtered, while Orcs not killed in battle are captured and enslaved."

Pleasingly you play an Orc, with Man as your enemy. You're charged with killing the Emperor in a major effort to win the ongoing war. You're also joined by a Goblin, and the two will apparently have starkly different skill trees. The Orc a tank, the Goblin an assassin.

It's currently set for a Spring 2012 release, published by Focus.