As thrilling as inXile’s upcoming The Bard’s Tale 4 seems to be, it’s heartening to see that the studio hasn’t forgotten the roots of the sequence. Preempting the discharge of their fashionable sequel, they’re rolling out remastered variations of Interplay’s unique three DOS-era dungeon crawlers. Redrawn, re-animated and given extra room to breathe in a barely extra fashionable, high-resolution UI, the remastered The Bard’s Tale Trilogy can be launching its first sport on August 14th, with the opposite two due by 12 months’s finish.
While The Bard’s Tale Trilogy will largely adhere to the unique 80s trilogy, inXile and Krome have made a couple of enhancements whereas they have been at it. All three video games now assist automapping, you possibly can decide a male or feminine protagonist, and you may carry your save from one sport to the following with out an excessive amount of fuss. For those that’d reasonably endure, there’s ‘Legacy Mode’, which can make it play extra just like the 80s originals. Apparently remaking the trilogy was a hell of a job, as no unique supply code survives, forcing them to reverse-engineer a number of variations to finish up right here.
This isn’t the primary time inXile have achieved this, both. Accompanying the discharge of Wasteland 2 (which was way more of a direct sequel than I used to be anticipating), they put out Wasteland 1 – The Original Classic. While not practically as full a remaster as The Bard’s Tale Trilogy, it took the story textual content previously externalised right into a booklet for copy safety, and absolutely built-in and narrated it. They even re-drew among the artwork whereas nonetheless retaining that EGA DOS look. While it’s nonetheless a tough sport to get into in case you’re used to fashionable RPG interfaces, it’s one of the simplest ways to benefit from the unique.
The first sport in The Bard’s Tale Trilogy can be touchdown on Steam and GOG subsequent week for $15, with the opposite two (included within the worth) coming in Autumn and Winter respectively. Meanwhile, the way more modern The Bard’s Tale 4: Barrow’s Deep is due out on September 18th.
