The Waylanders Update #20

The new post-funding Kickstarter update for Gato Salvaje Studio’s time-travel RPG The Waylanders informs us that thanks to a number of PayPal backers, the game will now feature Heraklios – an additional companion for you to recruit. The update also mentions Mike Laidlaw’s recent departure from the team and explains what this means for the project.

Check it out:

Greetings backers!

We have an important announcement: Paypal pledge is already active and… we reached the next stretch goal!

So, Heraklios will be available in the game as a companion!

If you don’t remember Heraklios’ background, here it is:

Despite his youth, Heraklios is one of the best greek warriors, as capable fighting with his sword as he is with his bare hands. Nobody wants to fight him in pancratio, sport Heraklios is a brutal champion of.

He’s a member of Salamina’s royal family and it’s said that he comes from Teucer’s lineage.

Following the idea that superheroes are the gods and heroes of the modern mythology, Heraklios is obsessed with greek legends in the same way a modern geek would be with Star Wars or superheroe comics. During his childhood his parents told him classic greek histories, making him an absolute fan of these legends, being the Trojan Cycle his favorite saga. He could recite from memory all the ships and warriors who joined in the trojan siege, or spend hours in an argument about who would be the winner in a fight between Hercules and Achilles. He is a greek geek!

He is also obsessed with collecting things related with his favorite legends; his most valuable belonging is a replica of Achilles’ shield, decorated just like the one described in the Iliad. He does not use this shield in battle though, to keep it intact, in the same way a collector today would never open the package of a rare action figure.

His biggest dream is to achieve glory in combat and become an equal to the mythological heroes he admires.

When a group of greek soldiers comes to Brigantia he joins them to follow the steps of his ancestor and visit the land where Teucer spent his last years.

As Brigantia is now in siege, Heraklios sees some kind of similarity with the trojan war and thinks this is the great battle where he can find the fame he is looking for.

Pledge manager

In a few days our Paypal campaign will be over and at that point we’ll open the pledge manager on BackerKit. When it gets activated, you’ll receive an email with more information so you can select the rewards and add-ons you have acquired. We’ll also notify you through an update, in case someone misses our email.

Mike Laidlaw

Some of you have asked us about the recent news on Mike Laidlaw, who has joined Ubisoft as a Creative Director on an unannounced project. So, a couple of things on this:

First things first, we are super happy for Mike and we would like to congratulate him on this amazing new step in his career! We are excited about the amazing projects that he is going to make!

Second, you’ll be happy to know this will not affect in any way the development of The Waylanders. After 1 year of closely working with Mike on both the pre-production and the pre-alpha, his work in our project is done! As a consultant, he has contributed in many ways: he has laid down the base for the entire story of The Waylanders. He has also helped us figure out production, organization and he has provided us with fresh ideas to create a really innovative RPG. For all of this, thank you, Mike!

In any case, this doesn’t mean that Mike has completely abandoned the Waylanders project. As he mentioned in his official statement, he just won’t be able to collaborate with us full time. In his own words: “I won’t be able to work with them full time, but I firmly believe they are in great hands now that Emily Grace Buck has joined the team and is taking over many of the parts I was handling”.

In regards of the development of the rest of the story, Emily Grace Buck, Josué Monchán and our secret (for now) top notch scriptwriter are hard at work on it and we are super excited about how promising all of it already looks. We cannot wait to tell you more in future updates!

Oh! And happy holidays from the Gato Studio team!