14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Stoic Studios is offering more details about the upcoming The Banner Saga, talking about the way the various game mechanics will be linked in order to create the story choices that power the single-player modes of the game.
Gamers will have to choose conversation options in order to move to new areas of the game and the travels they undertake influence how the game world evolves and the decisions that become available in the future.
Alex Thomas, the creative director at Stoic Studios, writes on the Kickstarter page, “By having largely text-driven and modular gameplay, we can produce a ton of high-quality content quickly and cheaply. While a standard RPG requires cinematics, voiceovers, 3d art, lighting, scripting and unique animations for each and every event, our advantage is in creating less expensive but vastly larger amounts of content.”
The developer compared The Banner Saga with classic role-playing game experiences like Planescape and Fallout.
He says that the titles offered a wide variety of experiences and options because the teams made systems that allowed them to create a lot of content quickly and cheaply.
Thomas added, “Additionally, this style of production lets us iterate the writing up until the last moment. It’s impossible to overstate how important this is… the ability to be agile and make changes to existing parts of the game based on new ideas gives you the best chance to make something exceptional.”
The decisions that players make in The Banner Saga will include resource allocation and future travel destinations.
The game will also integrate a deep tactical battle mode designed to appeal to players who enjoy old-school role-playing experience.
The Banner Saga will deliver a free-to-play tactical title during the summer and a full-fledged role-playing experience will arrive later, with an episodic structure.