I’m not the biggest Iron Tower fan, seeing as their games (at least to me), are more of a CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) experience than a free-form RPG. But, it can’t be denied that they are hits within the cRPG community. Colony Ship and The Age of Decadence weren’t too liked by me, yet, it shows that they know their craft and have a specific style and tone they follow, regardless of my lack of appreciation. However, while successful, it seems the games didn’t bring in enough money, and for anyone that followed the drama after Colony Ship‘s release knows that the future looked grim for the studio. Then, the other day, right out of the blue, they announced they are working on a fresh new game, and it certainly has me curious!
Lovecraftian horror
Their new project is called Heralds of the Third Apocalypse, and will be some kind of Battle Brothers inspired tactical RPG, set in a bronze age world, consisting of humans and scary eldritch horrors. You can read more about their statement here on Steam, and in the main thread on RPG Codex. On Codex is where I found Vince (main developer) mentioning their inspiration for this game.
“Our inspiration is Battle Brothers, and while we aren’t going to copy it blindly, procedurally generated quests are part of its design core.”
Now, it’s this part, besides the cool setting, that has me very curious. It seems they are ditching the rigid RPG experience that their former games provided, for a more open semi-sandbox approach, with probably fewer walls of texts to read. At first, I scoffed at “procedurally-generated quests”, because who wants to do AI slop quests? But if Battle Brothers is their main inspiration, it makes perfect sense if the style of gameplay with dynamic quests will be similar. I mean: having you roam a landscape with a group of brave men for fame or fortune endlessly, or whatever Iron Tower thinks you will be on the lookout for. That’s not to say there won’t be a more detailed written main quest, as it is mentioned in their statement.
The only issue here is that nothing is set in stone. In their statement, it can go either way, with a fifty percent chance going either way – creating the game, or not. I really hope they decide to produce it, because if there is one thing I like about their games: it’s brutal turn-based combat. Okay, sure, Colony Ship could feel a bit iffy, but not something a few balance passes can’t fix. The funny thing is, I remember mentioning on the forums that they could always do some kind of X-com spinoff, seeing as they already got the combat engine working, and have plenty of assets. A smaller project that could earn them a few bucks, because who doesn’t love X-com-like games? At the time, though, my suggestion fell on deaf ears, so it’s a bit humorous reading this announcement.
I want to wish them all the luck, though, and I truly hope they start working on this project, because it sounds fun. Maybe they can finally convert me to their side?
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Vault 