The tactical role-playing game was inspired by Norse mythos

Dec 5, 2014 12:34 GMT  ·  By

Paradox Interactive has announced that Runemaster, the role-playing game based on Norse mythology, is no longer in the works at the developer.

The news comes from the Paradox Plaza forums, where the developer has made the announcement and has cited the fact that the game, in its current form, is unable to live up to the high standards that the company has set for itself, as the reason behind the decision.

"After much internal debate we have made the decision to freeze development of the project until further notice and move the development team working on it to other projects within Paradox Development Studio."

"This was not an easy decision to make - Runemaster was a very ambitious project for us, and the team working on it brought all of their passion, dedication, and talent to the table," reads the official announcement from Susana Meza Graham, the COO of Paradox Interactive.

The decision will no doubt come as bad news for many who were excited about Paradox branching out from their usual series, Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings and all the others, and trying their hand at a role-playing game.

However, it will ultimately be for the better, as letting the developers focus on something that lives up to their high standards is preferable to publishing a mediocre game.

An overly ambitious project, perhaps

Runemaster was announced back in January and was a genuine surprise, as nobody expected Paradox Interactive to devote time and resources to a project that strays so much from their usual strategic titles.

The developers promised procedurally generated maps and quests, thus ensuring that no one playthrough was the same as another.

The tactical role-playing game would have allowed players to explore six worlds hailing from Norse mythology, in command of a troop assembled from a wide range of units with unique abilities.

The game would have also included an immersive storyline to explore, showing the creatures and protagonists we all know from comic books, movies and Tolkienesque works of fantasy in an entirely new light.

Throughout the course of the year, Paradox Development Studio released a series of dev blogs talking about the many features and exciting, rich mythological influence of the game.

Now that development is frozen, the project is not likely to ever see the light of day, which is disappointing, since the game would have served as a resource of entertainment as well as of education.

The members of the team formerly working in Runemaster have been moved to other projects currently in development at Paradox Interactive.

Runemaster screenshots (9 Images)

Runemaster
A strategic chokepointLate-night spelunking
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