The crowdfunding campaign for The Banner Saga 3 [official site] has wrapped up and — surprise! — seems enough folks do want to see the Norse fantasy turn-based strategy game through to the end. As well as hitting its goal, the Kickstarter campaign hit several stretch goals. The second game improved on the first a lot, so fingers crossed that this trend will continue and Stoic will slam jam a home dunk runaround across the starboard pitch this time. Read the rest of this entry »
The tale of the little flag that could will continue in The Banner Saga 3 [official site], if a Kickstarter goes well. Yup, developers Stoic have turned back to crowdfunding to conclude their strategy RPG series. We waved the safety flag for the first Banner Saga, digging its look and style but not so much the combat, then waved the chequered flag for its follow-up, which improved the combat enough for us to declare it one of our favourite strategy games. For the third, hopefully we’ll end up waving our dotty bloomers on a stick? Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve been waiting Ever Since The World Began, you Can’t Hold Back, you’re suffering Desperate Dreams, your Eye of the Tiger scans the horizon for signs of Broken Promises, then good news: The Search Is Over, and Here Comes Desire. Today The Banner Saga 2 [official site] receives its promised Survivor mode in a free update.
Survivor mode is a permadeath challenge with rounds of gruelling combat to survi- wait. Survival mode. They’ve added a survival mode. Pffff.
RPS Feature A strong second act
Despite its flaws, The Banner Saga [official site] is one of the most memorable indie releases of 2014, and now the second act is here to push the story to even more desperate frontiers. But does The Banner Saga 2 improve upon its predecessor’s lackluster strategy combat while still expanding on its promising story? Here’s wot I think. (Note: there are spoilers for the first Banner Saga’s ending).
I’ve spent so long frolicking in the intangible tangerine skies of VR-land lately that it’s genuinely bewildering to look at a traditional game again. It’s so… flat. So… image-y. And also so sharp and fluid and won’t make my eyeballs pulsate and flail as if dancing helplessly to some unseen disco beat from hell. Confusing matters worse is that gorgeous strategy/roleplaying/survival opus The Banner Saga – and its upcoming sequel Banner Saga 2 [official site] – continues to look like a game that is simultaneously from the past and the future.
The Banner Saga, as I remember, is a tactical RPG about a really nice flag and the rapscallions who want to steal it from you so they can really admire its fine needlework. That’s… hang on, no, Wot Adam Thought reminds me it’s a jolly pretty tactical RPG about a leading a caravan and army across a cruel Viking-y fantasy world – which becomes too repetitive. Still, it is a lovely flag, so let’s see what developers Stoic can do with a sequel. We’ve not long to wait now, as they’ve announced that The Banner Saga 2 [official site] will launch on Tuesday, April 19th.
RPS Feature Tweaking the trilogy
I arrived a few minutes early for a Banner Saga 2 [official site] interview with Stoic’s artist Arnie Jorgensen and writer Drew McGee at E3 so I set my bags down and walked over to a vacant demo computer. The game is the second of Stoic’s planned trilogy and I’ve only played half of the first Banner Saga so I was a little cautious – what if there were spoilers?
Curiosity won out and OH GOD THERE WERE SPOILERS!
With that in mind, if you’ve not played or finished the first game and wish to avoid spoilers just bookmark this for later:
Ah, the video game industry’s eternal quest to corrupt the hearts and minds of our youth continues. Not content with turning them all into warlike barbarians, anthropomorphous cubes of meat or cats, now that hateful, wretched ‘interactive entertainment’ is teaching them the ins and outs of running a medieval thieves guild! When will the madness end?
Killers And Thieves [official site] is the (evil) work of Alex Thomas, creative director of indie all-star The Banner Saga [official site]. He’s working independently under the banner of Candle And Key as the rest of Stoic move onto the sequel, though they’re acting as publisher. It’s about sending teams of criminals out on missions in a sprawling medieval city, breaking in and getting away with as much loot as possible.
The Banner Saga arrived at the great RPS mead hall to a somewhat mixed reception. We appreciated the manner in which the beleaguered band of luminaries presented themselves but couldn’t help but yawn long before they’d finished telling us of the events that had brought them to our table. Whatever its flaws may be, The Banner Saga told an unusually bleak and believable tale of a world in its twilight years, and I’ll gladly cast aside my reservations to see the continuation of that tale. The video below doesn’t give a great deal away, but it confirms that the next chapter of the saga is incoming.
RPS Feature Stoic In The Face Of A Crushing
This afternoon King – owners of Candy Crush Saga and an ever-increasing percentage of the dictionary – issued a statement defending their actions regarding the news that they had filed an opposition to Stoic’s attempts to trademark “The Banner Saga”. A defence that seems odd in the face of what’s actually happening. Especially as they’re arguably attempting to assert a trademark they don’t actually have. Appearing to believe they are the only company allowed to register games with “saga” in the title, King has exercised this by preventing other studios’ efforts to protect their unique game names with their own trademarks.
Yet in King’s statement (below), they make it clear that they don’t believe that Stoic is trying to profit from a similar name, and say they do not wish to prevent Stoic from using the name. A claim that seems, well, rather peculiar given the circumstances, and their appearing to say something quite different in their Opposition. It’s something Stoic have now told RPS they’re not too pleased about either, stating, “We won’t make a Viking saga without the word Saga, and we don’t appreciate anyone telling us we can’t.”
RPS Feature The Saga Saga
Yesterday the internet was alive with the news about King, owners of Candy Crush Saga, their trademarking of the word “Candy”, and their ensuing threats to other developers who are using the word in their game titles. The response from King was to flap their eyelashes and protest innocence – they were only defending the Earth against evil, not liberally chasing anyone and everyone. About that. We’ve seen the document that shows their attempt to go after The Banner Saga.
RPS Feature Ramblerok
Separated from all else by a great storm that ripped the land asunder, Alec and Adam huddle on a fragile, knife-shaped peninsula to watch the world freeze and die. They dream of old gods, they think of roads not taken, they mourn for the lost. And they have a right old natter about Stoic’s recently released, uncommonly beautiful, Viking-inspired roleplaying/strategy/giants’n’conversation game The Banner Saga.
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RPS Feature For the ages?
The Banner Saga is a tantalising prospect. An independent release from a small team of former Bioware employees, it promises a rich story, a new world and intricate tactical combat. It also has the most stupendously attractive art I’ve seen in a long time. Impressed by the opening hours, I’ve since spent several days in the game’s icy company, I’ve deliberated long and hard to bring you my final verdict. Here’s wot I think.
RPS Feature Banner Banter
The Banner Saga‘s first chapter is due out next month. It’s certainly much anticipated, coming from a team of ex-Biowares, and following a phenomenally successful Kickstarter. A tactical RPG, turn-based combat combined with a unique way of delivering its narrative, it’s going to be interesting to see how it suits people’s tastes. It certainly divided John and Adam, as they played through the first three or four hours of the game.
Order Of Business The First: You should know that The Banner Saga – which I developed a sort of gleeful Stockholm Syndrome toward after it crushed my spirits like so many brittle icicles for three hours – has a release date! Shamefully, we missed the initial announcement, but I will now atone for that mistake by a) telling you and b) dripping hot wax into my eyes. Alright then, let’s begin: The Banner YEAAAAGGHGHGOHHHCHRIST Saga is coming out on NYEAAARGGHHHWHYYY January AAAAAAAAAHHHH 14th PLEASECALLANAAAAAAAAMBULANCE. *Days of intensive care pass* OK, that out of the way, let’s watch a video of The Banner Saga’s Oregon-Trail-but-with-miserably-tough-choices travel system. (I can’t actually see it or anything anymore, but I’ll enjoy it vicariously through you.)
RPS Feature Oregon Trail With Vikings
Multiplayer smart-o-battler The Banner Saga Factions might be out and (mostly) free for all, but even the former BioWare-ites at Stoic will readily admit that it was always a sideshow. The Banner Saga is, at heart, a story and a place. It’s a world in conflict, sure, but pensive Viking biffery is only one piece of a much larger, more varied puzzle. I recently got to spend a few hours with chapter one of the Kickstarter darling’s single-player campaign, and it prompted many thoughts. Here they are, freshly scooped from my brain and dribbled onto a page for your enrichment.
RPS Feature Cold Soldiers
Viking caravans might be slow, methodical machines, but they make their arrival worth the wait. By mercilessly slaughtering all who oppose them. I’m mostly certain that won’t be the outcome of The Banner Saga‘s impending arrival, but I don’t like to make assumptions. What I know for sure, however, is that Stoic isn’t just tossing chapter one out in the cold and leaving it in permafrost while time passes it by. The series will continue marching onward, and another go at Kickstarter definitely isn’t out of the question.
The Banner Saga: Factions is, you will recall, the free multiplayer aspect of The Banner Saga, rather than the single-player campaign that you’re going to have pay up front for. Nathan went hands on with the game previously to tell us all what to expect. I’m downloading it right now for turn-based impressions. Anyone else jumping on this particularly wagon? It being F2P and all that?
Trailer beneath the snowy wastes.
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Friends, countrymen, flowing cloth aficionados, lend me your ears. OK, now put those away, because they’re not very good for reading. The Banner Saga: Factions – the free-to-play intro to Stoic’s world of handsomely bearded vikings and handsome-beard-stroking strategy (no word yet on an immersion-enhancing handsome beard peripheral) – will be out for everyone next week. Better still, it’s open to some of everyone right now. Specifically, those who raised a hearty mug of monetary ale to Stoic’s success on Kickstarter. But wait, what about that sprawling, vaguely Biowarian single-player epic you paid for? Well, the former Biowarers (sp?) at Stoic are calling Factions a necessary first step.
What do boulder-shouldered fantasy Vikings do for the holidays? It’s a question that I’ve pondered far more than I care to admit, but I’ve never been able to come up with a conclusive answer. Evidently, however, I just wasn’t looking in the right places. Instead of scouring their mead halls in search of wafting feast fumes and bawdy tunes, I should’ve headed straight for the most axe-strewn, arrow-speckled of battlefields. The Banner Saga’s Vikings, you see, continue to duke it out even as we speak, and a new Yuletide update’s trotted some formidable toys out to the frontline. Thanks, nasty, brutish Viking Santa!
