The Banner Saga Previews

I’d imagine we’re going to see more and more previews for The Banner Saga pop up in the next few days, given it seems the team at Stoic has sent some press outlets preview code for the title, but for now you might want to read the two we’ve rounded up for this post, starting from Eurogamer’s piece:

The Banner Saga plots the story of various clans of Vikings either on a journey to a capital city or outrunning an evil menace that destroyed their home. It’s a journey that will take you a dozen hours to see through, a journey filled with decisions and consequences, a journey fraught with peril, and all of it sewn into and recorded on your clan’s banner. You’ll become emotionally attached to the heroes you collect, and there are something like 26 to discover. In that sense The Banner Saga is like a BioWare adventure. But there’s a key difference.

“With a big game like Dragon Age or Mass Effect, a Hollywood blockbuster, you know who’s going to survive and who isn’t. They’re not going to throw out a ton of work because they let you kill off a character early; they’re not going to let the main character die.

“… Because we’re indie,” Thomas adds, “we can do whatever we want.” He takes his cues from George RR Martin’s brutal A Song of Fire and Ice (A Game of Thrones) fiction, and from Black Company. “Nobody’s really safe,” he says. Characters can be lost to different events, choose to leave or simply be killed. “We’re going to kill off a lot of characters that you love, dammit!” he adds with a laugh.

The characters who do survive will travel with you into future Banner Saga games, though, as importable saved games are “absolutely” part of the plan.

I’ve spent a few hours with a preview build of The Banner Saga, which is where I took the screenshots embedded in this article. And it’s everything I hoped it would be: challenging, engaging, beautiful and deep. The story is told from multiple viewpoints that change with each chapter as you progress, both tales starting at opposite ends of the map but no doubt destined to collide. Protecting the different caravans of followers as they travel throws up varied and interesting situations, each with numerous and equally appealing solutions.

The other article has been penned by a Noobfeed’s writer:

Its artisanal illustrations that filter through the backgrounds of the forests and hills from this game cast off their wintery traits with earthen colors swashed across the tableau vivant of sorts. Trees shift behind a giant rune as a caravan with flyaway flag bustles through the middle panel, obscured by more forefront shapes in this chilly nature landscape. Characters banter in offsite camps, where winds chill past or in the streets of larger cities that have greyed stones as their horizon. Simple touches to minimal parts of drawings receive fluid animations to make the portrait more than the sum of its part. Even though little is moving, the candid conversations that turn from one person to the next feel truly alive. It’s reminiscent of classic cartoons like The Sword in the Stone or Don Bluth creations.

Visuals are completed with primarily a fitting orchestra of drums to thump in the Nordic theme, accompanied by a set of wind instruments either heralding glorious marching or shushing intimate moments. While not a lot is spoken right now, the words that are uttered are done so with a particular Viking accent, which one would expect from giants with horns, long beards and a set of medieval weaponry.

Not one stone is left unturned in this adventure, which marks a world map in brownish scrawls, where every point of interest yields its own lore and depicts a place to see later on. History and culture run deep within this title, so much so that it’s hard to believe there will be anything but conversation options that strengthen or weaken fleeting alliances. In that sense, it can become tricky to memorize each person’s importance, through dialog alone.