The Banner Saga Preview

Polygon has published a new preview for Stoic’s The Banner Saga, which includes a significant amount of commentary from the game developers of the Kickstarter-funded turn-based RPG. Here’s a snip:

“When we started working on the game, the hand-holding, easy gameplay trend of today was a main reason we wanted to take the advantage of going independent,” Thomas told Polygon in a recent interview. “It really boils down to making the game that we wanted to play, instead of trying to guess what everyone wants. Our first goal was to make sure nothing is unfair. Nothing happens that didn’t have some kind of context, or that gives the player an option to react to a situation.”

Battles aren’t the only places where your heroes can fall. The Banner Saga follows the caravan of several factions as they travel from town to town on their own discrete quests though their stories are tied together by a thread of survival. Everyone is being chased by the Dredge, a monstrous foe that has begun to blanket their land. Your marching party, composed of soldiers and peasants alike, is on the run from a wave of enemies that, if it overtakes them, will spell disaster. The journey is a distant cousin of that of The Oregon Trail; but instead of a city of gold at its end, there’s a wall of death at its rear.

Your constant decisions will determine how your caravan stays ahead of the horde. When the town you’ve arrived in is attacked, do you gather supplies and take on a string of difficult fights? Or do you turn tail and run, facing possible starvation? Do you push your caravan to give yourself breathing room from the Dredge, or maintain a slower pace to keep your caravan healthy?