The Banner Saga Trilogy Interview

Alex Thomas, one of the co-founders of Stoic Studio, recently had a chat with the folks over at God is a Geek about The Banner Saga, his studio’s trilogy of viking-themed narrative RPGs. The resulting interview covers the series’ development, design, music and more. Here are a few sample questions and you take it from there:

After all the hard work you guys put in, how does it feel now the trilogy is complete, and is there a sense of loss now it’s over?

We’ve talked about that a couple times and it always comes up as a certain combination of melancholy and relief. On the one hand, we’ve been kind of living and breathing this world every day for going on 7-ish years now and to actually be done with it is such a sad thing, because I think we’ve made something that feels organic and natural, like it might exist even without us. On the other hand, we set out from the beginning with the plan to make this hugely ambitious thing, and we actually pulled it off to the point that everywhere we’ve looked people seem satisfied with the resolution and feel closure about the whole journey. We really couldn’t have asked for more than that!

Do you all have a specific moment of the game, or design choice that you’re all proud of?

I can’t speak for the whole team, but as the writer and creator of the fiction from the start I know that we set out to tackle some really ambitious claims, that we could make a game where “choices really matter” and a cast of over 35 characters, each with their own voices and narratives. Our goal was for players to feel really invested, and feel like their story was truly their own. On the gameplay side we took a risk with an untested system using strength as health and damage that could have really backfired. We’ve even seen other games come out and be compared to the Banner Saga as if we created a new sub-genre, and that’s something I find pretty amazing. I’m glad nobody told me how hard it would be or I’m not sure we would have persevered, but I couldn’t be happier with how it all came out.