14 DAY TRIAL // One of the main developers working on the upcoming The Banner Saga has revealed that the team is welcoming the newfound freedom they have to create innovative new game mechanics that might not be tolerated when working at bigger studios.
Alex Thomas, who is one of the founders of Stoic Games, has told Rock, Paper, Shotgun that gamers would have to face the consequences of their actions in ways they are not accustomed to.
He said, “We don’t think a big studio, for example BioWare, is going to let you lose someone that you like. As a smaller indie studio we thought that was freaking cool. We might ruffle some feathers, but we want to have that in the game.”
Arnie Jorgensen, who is another developer working on The Banner Saga, says that Stoic Games even considered eliminating save games from their game altogether in order to make consequences clearer but since then has decided only to severely limit them.
He added, “this game is small enough that we can take chances on stuff like that. We wanted to be a little bit more old-school, so that you can just play through. You can’t save everywhere. To go back to a checkpoint would cost you some time, so you just move on forward.”
Stoic Games revealed that The Banner Saga really does not have good and bad actions and that the player should only focus on getting through the game in order to see all the content that it can offer.
The lack of save games and the importance of consequences also means that replayability is encouraged.
The Banner Saga will first get a Factions free-to-play launch which will familiarize players with the combat mechanics of the game before the end of the year.
In 2013, players will also get access to the narrative-driven game, which will arrive in episodic format.