Sometimes it feels impolite to reference a recreation’s influences in a headline like this, however it’s exhausting to speak about AurumDust’s debut RPG, Ash of Gods with out drawing some comparisons to Stoic’s continuing pseudo-Viking saga, particularly when it comes to artwork type and fight engine.
Originally funded by means of Kickstarter, Ash of Gods appears to have made good on its early crowdfunding guarantees, as much as and together with a March launch date, and the small Russian studio have launched a dramatic story-focused trailer reconfirming their launch plans.
Set in a barely extra conventional darkish fantasy world than Banner Saga, you’ll apparently be taking part in as a trio of protagonists – a retired city guard-captain, a healer and an murderer – every with their very own events and crossing plot threads. Similar to its inspirations, there’ll be a heavy give attention to resolution making as you lead the three protagonists and their respective events by means of their respective story arcs.
One attention-grabbing word is that the plot is designed to proceed even when the protagonists handle to get themselves killed by means of choices, though this may presumably result in a considerably less-than-happy conclusion to the story.
Unlike The Banner Saga, the fight engine seeks to distinguish itself considerably by means of a tried-and-tested alternate route by making fight partially card-based, with every flip’s attainable actions being outlined by the hand you’ve been dealt. There’s additionally no dice-rolling, so all assaults will hit and do a set quantity of injury, decreasing the quantity of chaos and guess-work concerned in fundamental motion and engagement.
As simple as it will be to dismiss the efforts of this recreation, given its visible similarities to The Banner Saga, I really feel the studio must be applauded for even coming near matching the type and visible readability. Combat animations specifically are very clean and pure, though that’s partially as a result of rotoscoping – drawing animation frames instantly over live-action footage. Motion seize for the cel-animation technology.
It’ll be attention-grabbing to see precisely how Ash of Gods units itself other than The Banner Saga, and whether or not its writing can survive the oft-treacherous journey from Russian to English. We’ll hopefully be digging deeper into this one nearer to its launch subsequent month.
