Former Artsy BioWare Devs Creating The Banner Saga
Former BioWareites, Stoic, are formed from a gathering of those who worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic, then ran off into the Texan wastelands to form their own studio. The three-man indie team is working on an online hybrid called The Banner Saga, that plans to merge RPG, turn-based strategy, and vikings. It is the combination mentioned in the Mayan Codecs.
At first glance of the game's sparse website, you can really tell this is a team including two artists. Emulating animated films, the cartoon world will feature turn-based combat of hand-painted enemies, and because they spent more than ten seconds at BioWare, it'll have conversation choices to make with long-term consequences. Of it, they say,
"The Banner Saga is a mature game aimed at gamers who appreciate art, story and strategy."
The game will apparently be free, and is described as an "adventure mini-series". Also worth noting is that the game is being made in a goat shed. Really. First it looked like this:
Then it looked like this:
We shall be pestering Stoic for more details on this immediately.