The Banner Saga 3 Update #30

The month of December has just begun but the folks at Stoic Studio are already here with holiday well-wishes and even a card. You can check them out in the latest Kickstarter update for The Banner Saga 3 that also offers some stats for the recent Alpha Battle and answers some potential questions about the game’s development progress. A few snippets:

Hey Bannerfolk! As 2018 approaches, I suppose you must be wondering how far along we are in development of Banner Saga 3! What’s the status? Where’s the final chapter to my epic saga? Why don’t you just ship this thing already so I can know how it all ends!?! Well, I’m here to answer ALL your questions, because I’m the producer, and that’s just what we do.

Banner Saga 3 is still in an Alpha state, but I’m happy to report that we are approaching the ‘Feature Complete’ milestone (where no more new game features are added and we start to iterate, bugfix and polish). These are the features and tools that our programmers (John and Drew) deliver to the designers (Matt and Alex) so they can implement content into the game (character conversations, combat abilities, and new game systems).

Speaking of the designers, Arnie’s creative team (Art and Design) are trying to get to ‘Content Complete’ so that we can consider writing and art assets to be ‘final, polished and ready to ship.’ The final pass on writing will happen this year, and the translation/localization process will soon kick off for 10+ languages. Isn’t it exciting to think that the final chapter of the story is almost completely written? I totally know how it ends and I’m not even going to tell you. :o) Our partner companies are kicking into high gear to deliver their final assets early next year:

• Powerhouse Animation is compositing our in-game cinematics at break-neck speed to meet deadlines early in 2018. (Did you guys see their work on Battle Chasers and Castlevania? These guys are KILLIN IT)
• This month we’re kicking off Quality Assurance testing to start gathering bugs to squash.
• Austin Wintory is composing and delivering scratch music tracks (placeholders made digitally to stand in for the real tracks that come after recording). He’ll be tuning up the full symphony for orchestral soundtrack recording in January.
• KPoW Audio is playing through the latest build and planning out sound effects.
• Syrland will be recording voice over for some of our cinematics early in the new year in their intimidating Nordic voices.
• Versus Evil is creating their marketing master plan, including in-person appearances for the team at many gaming shows (look for those announcements on social media in the new year!)
• For those of you in our Kickstarter, many of the merchandise items have been manufactured and are on their way to our fulfillment facility – we continue to strive to beat our December 2018 deadline for those, and there should be some exciting updates in the new year.

Banner Saga 1 and 2 are also getting some love and bugfixing and we’re hoping to have an exciting announcement in the new year that I’m not going to say anthing more about, because I’m the producer, and that’s just what we do. -Your Truly, Zeb L. West

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Happy Holidays from Team Stoic

As we head into the 2017 holidays, we’re reminiscing about how far we’ve come this year! We launched our Banner Saga 3 Kickstarter campaign in January and funded in less than one week. We went on to see tremendous support and generosity from the entire Banner Saga community of players. We were able to hire some new key team members, Drew, Danny and Andy. And we launched our first Alpha Battle to backers as promised, welcoming their feedback and suggestions in the process of game design we so dearly love.

From all of us to all of you, from our families to yours, we wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season.