While Rear Admiral Walker of the good ship RoPapSho wasn’t entirely enamoured with Pillars of Eternity II‘s blend of Baldur’s Gate-ish CRPG’ing and fantasy Caribbean piratical adventuring, the game has certainly found its niche, and the chanting from the crowd is loud and clear. People want more Pirate Stuff to do, and more pirates to hang out with. A little chunk of free DLC released today – the Rum Runner’s Pack – adds a bit of both, if your idea of Pirate Stuff is getting blind drunk on delicious dark rum with a new buddy.
A doomsday cult, a treasure island, and wizards will be the centre of Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire‘s three DLC add-ons. Yup, though Obsidian’s fantasy RPG isn’t out until next month, details on DLC plans arrived today. Arriving across July to November, the three DLCs will explore new areas, quest new quests, fight new fights, and loot new loot. Read the rest of this entry »
The bearded warrior looks exhausted. Part of a band of mercenaries, he blinks slowly at us. Even while the player chooses their next words, the crease-eyed humans and horned Varls of The Banner Saga 3 stand there, blinking slowly. Their hair fluttering, eyes searching you for intent. These are quiet moments of incidental detail. Twitching moustaches, billowing capes, tensing fists. They are looping animations, designed to bring life to otherwise static moments, but they are a smooth and subtle reminder that The Banner Saga remains one of the most beautifully animated game trilogies in existence. This tired axeman is just one of the finely-drawn fighters of the series finale. Arnie Jorgensen, Creative Director at Stoic, seems happy to let him rest.
“It’s really gratifying for me personally, as one of the people involved, to finish it,” he says to me, while showing the game at GDC. “Not only that but we’re finishing it to a better degree than we started… We’re not just finishing it, we’re finishing it strong.” Read the rest of this entry »
Stoic’s Viking-y RPG trilogy will conclude with The Banner Saga 3 on July 24th, publishers Versus Evil have announced. The strategy RPG trek has seen tough battles and difficult decisions so far, but the worst is surely yet to come. Our boy Brendy recently talked to Stoic and will have more to tell you about the game later today. For now, coo, look, a release date. This is months ahead of the Kickstarter’s worst-case prediction of December 2018, so good on ’em. Read the rest of this entry »
It feels like it was just yesterday when the world turned to crowdfunding to spur the creation of a new generation of old-school CRPGs. We were so desperate for something, anything on the level of Baldur’s Gate or Planescape: Torment again. Now, we’re drowning in them, struggling to find the free time to finish one before the next crashes across the bow. We’re still lurching from Divinity: Original Sin 2.
The next big impact looks to be Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, seafaring sequel to Obsidian’s broadly land-bound game of party management, dungeon crawling and extensive dialogue trees. While it might have missed its initial release date by a little, it’s back on track and due for a May 8th release, and we’ve got one more trailer for you to peruse; probably not the last, but packed deep with interesting tidbits.
Obsidian’s throwback RPG sequel Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire was due to launch in a few weeks, on April 3rd, but now it will not. The developers announced today that they’re pushing the launch back to May 8th, as testing feedback has indicated the game’s not quite ready yet so they want to polish it up. Which, yeah, sure, great. If you can afford to release a game later so it can be better, please do so. Read the rest of this entry »
Here, check this out, I’ve got a joke: you won’t need to wait an eternity for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, as developers Obsidian have announced they will release it on April 3rd. Wordplay. I only recently found out about ‘jokes’ but I’m very into them. I’m told it’s good if jokes also tell a truth, so the truth is: the fantasy RPG sequel really is due on April 3rd. I don’t want to boast, but I think I’m crushing it. A joke for the ages. Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve not peeked at The Banner Saga 3 since Stoic’s Norse fantasy strategy RPG soared through Kickstarter in 2017, but now here’s a new trailer and oh! word that the game will launch earlier than expected. The Kickstarter tentatively said December 2018, and I’d even speculated that adding stretch goals features might push it back further, but publishers Versus Evil have now announced it’ll launch this summer. Whether it’s through coy planning or extra-speedy work, hey, once the sun comes out (all three days of summer) we’ll get to cool ourselves by tromping through the ice and snow murdering mythmen. Read the rest of this entry »
Crime doesn’t pay, we all know, but paying for crime is fine. If a jot of thievery tickles your fancy, have a peek at Antihero [official site], a turn-based strategy game about building up a thieves’ guild and undermining your opposition to rob a Victorian city blind. Recruit, bribe, blackmail, assassinate, and steal, steal, steal. Antihero is now out and looks a little something like this: 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.
Afro Samurai 2: The Revenge Of Kuma [official site] has all but fallen on its sword, it seems, with future episodes cancelled and the game pulled from sale. Having just released the first of three planned volumes at the end of September, this might come as a surprise, but that’s what publishers Versus Evil seem to have quietly announced in a recent interview. The reason is simple: it’s a failure.
Armikrog [official site] is more than onomatopoeia for a belter of a burp, it’s the first game in yonks from Earthworm Jim and The Neverhood chap Doug TenNapel. It was Kickstarted in 2013 as the “spiritual successor” to The Neverhood, offering more claymation adventure game jollies, and has today finally launched – only a year and a bit behind schedule.
Here, check out some of its squidgy pretties and boingy noises in this here new trailer:
The first of three episodes of Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma [official site], telling the story of a robot samurai with the face of a bear from your nightmares, is coming to Windows on September 22nd.
A spin-off of Takashi Okazaki’s original manga, Revenge of Kuma follows the antics of the cybernetic bear dude Kuma, who at one point was a human guy and best friend to the titular Afro Samurai. Kuma – who, confusingly, is also known as Jinno – is now after poor Afro to avenge the death of his adopted little sister. Look, it makes sense if you played the first game.
Skyshine’s Bedlam [official site] is the hybrid offspring of XCOM, The Banner Saga, FTL, Mad Max, The Oregon Trail and Judge Dredd that you always knew you wanted, but never thought you’d get. I’ve already spent several hundred words describing the beauty of its ruined America, which is criss-crossed with tactical combat and bizarre encounters. It’s a game in which you can manage the resources of a giant biological ‘vehicle’ as it slithers across the landscape, searching for fuel, guns and glory. I require its presence in my life as soon as possible and the release date has now been confirmed. September 17th. Trailer below.
That’s a headline packed with good things, isn’t it? And here’s another good thing – even if you don’t like any of the games films and comics listed in that headline, there’s still a possibility that Skyshine’s Bedlam [official site] will have something for you. Maybe you liked The Banner Saga? Bedlam is built on the engine used in that game. Maybe you really like the idea of riding around a broken world within the guts of a giant mutation? Sure. You can do that.
If you spent any portion of your childhood doodling dungeons onto graph paper then Guild of Dungeoneering [official site] screenshots probably make you go ‘coo’ and ‘awwww’ in the same way that most of the internet responds to pictures of a pug riding a tricycle. Released yesterday, GoD is a dungeon-crawler in which you control the dungeons rather than the invading heroes. Well, strictly speaking you control the titular guild, upgrading facilities and recruiting new classes of combatant, then arranging the tiles of each dungeon to ensure your employees survive as you lure them ever deeper.
Hey. Hey, you. Fancy playing a samurai with a head like something out of Five Nights at Freddy’s? Well, I’ve got news for you then. (Literally. Hah.) Action game Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma [official… Twitter? what poor web presence!] finally has an official reveal trailer and … it’s not incredibly revealing.
The business of dungeon-delving isn’t the easiest. Oh, sure, you might triumphantly emerge with sacks of loot, taut triceps and a shiny new sword, but you might also be returning short a limb or two. Some don’t make it back at all. Not to mention that being underground all that time does terrible things to your skin.
What you need is a union. Or perhaps a guild: a Guild of Dungeoneering. Yes, some sort of bureaucratic organisation designed to support your professional endeavours. That’s what you need. They’ll take a cut, of course, but they have your best interests at heart… don’t they?
