Blackguards - New Game Set in The Dark Eye World

Myrthos

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Daedelic entertainment, who you might know from their adventure games, have announced their first turn-based RPG set in The Dark Eye world named Blackguards
Daedalic Announces Blackguards, Its First Turn-Based RPG
Bolstered by the success of their celebrated adventure games, the developers at Daedalic Entertainment are now off to new frontiers. This summer, Blackguards, the studio's first turn based RPG will be released.
Framed in a significantly darker story than you usually find in Daedalic games, the player will walk in the boots of a convicted murderer as he travels through Aventuria's wild south. On this journey the protagonist is accompanied by companions of varying loyalty: scoundrels and thieves like the half-elf Niam (and her latent drug addiction) or the lecherous wizard Zurbaran.
Blackguards features hordes of lethal creatures and other enemies waiting to be taken care of on more than 170 unique battlemaps. A number of major and minor quests ensure exciting and diverse gameplay through the campaign.
As can be expected in all Daedalic titles, Blackguards focuses on strong storytelling, now combined with action-packed gameplay and tactical, turn-based combat. Blackguards delivers more than 40 hours of adventure in Aventuria.
Blackguards will be available internationally in Q3 2013.
About the Game
What happens when the only hope of a threatened world lies not with heroes in shining armor but in the hands of a band of misfits and criminals? Blackguards – the new turn-based RPG by Daedalic Entertainment – explores this very question. The player takes on the role of a convicted murderer, who with the help of a team of more-than-questionable characters, must save the world from a dark menace. During the wild chase throughout the South of Aventuria, the world of The Dark Eye, there is more to fight than vicious creatures – chapter by chapter, a story full of intrigue and surprising twists unfolds. But when life and death are in the player’s hands, how far will they go to reach their goals?
The first turn-based RPG by Daedalic Entertainment unites the studio's high standard of a suspenseful storytelling and unique characters with gripping battles in elaborately crafted 3D-environments. In taxing campaigns the player takes part in a dark story full of doubt, betrayal and loss.
Whether the player chooses to go into battle as a mighty warrior, a clever wizard or a skillful hunter, the first battle isn’t far away. Over 170 individually crafted battle maps full of interactive objects and strategically complex situations lead the player to exotic locations and put them through deadly trials.
You can find two screenshots and some artwork, by clicking on the respective images below.
More information.
 
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Mmhh... another 'gritty' TDE game. Seems the complaints about Drakensang's cutesy graphics and writing hit home.
 
Oh god Alrik is going to lose it.
 
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I actually adored their TDE adventure.
So their RPG is an instant buy for me. Or instant preorder if and when available.
 
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Oh god Alrik is going to lose it.

Indeed he will. He hates dark and gritty and posted his dislike of the other Dark Eye game a few days ago.
 
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Funny thing is that it doesn't even really look all that "dark and gritty", at least not to me.

Maybe dark and gritty by Disney standards. :)
 
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Intriguing. MY RPG future is increasingly looking fairly good.

Link?
 
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Good times for turn based games fans! ;)
 
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This is definitely one worth watching!! (Pun intended) :)
 
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Dark... check
Gritty... check
Epic... maybe on next announcement.
 
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Ooooh looks interesting!

The wolf-on-girl-action screenshot is a bit weird though...
 
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Funny thing is that it doesn't even really look all that "dark and gritty", at least not to me.

Eh, even the outdoor scenes look dark, and I mean literally dark. They're overdoing it a bit.
 
Ooooh looks interesting!

The wolf-on-girl-action screenshot is a bit weird though…

Didn't you know that's how werewolves were first born.;) Monsters had to start somewhere.
 
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Oh, gritty! Wait a minute, grits shouldn't be dark?? What'd those Germans do to them!?

Anyway, 'turn based combat' + RPG makes it a likely buy but I'm a bit worried. Daedalic's website says its due out this summer but all they seem to have is art, nothing that looks like gameplay. The description is mighty vague, too. It looks like a game that's still two years off.
 
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I notice their background is in adventure games. Hope that it won't be one of those games where you have to exhaustively click on every possible dialogue option in order to find the next story step, like Drakensang. Other than that, not really enough information to work out whether this is going to be interesting.
 
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Mmhh… another 'gritty' TDE game. Seems the complaints about Drakensang's cutesy graphics and writing hit home.

Oh god Alrik is going to lose it.

I had similar thoughts, to be frank.

Apparingly the faction favouring "Greyturia" has won.

As I wrote elsewhere, there are a few factions among the fans, which prefer different things.

The oldest fans still remember the "fairy-tale-setting", which was part of TDE so long ago, too.

That changed with the "Borbarad Crisis", but that was already startted by the founders of Aventuria/TDE. During the "Borbarad Campaign" (also known as "The Marked Ones"), one of the founders died.

Borbarad and his minions invaded the before not much described landscape of Tobria (which is where "Demonicon" takes place) , and settled down there - with the author's intend to create a region within Aventuria which incorporated a distinct Horror Genre element.

Since then, the "Fairy Tale Aspect" of Aventuria/TDE went downhill.

It was meant to go away at one point in the future, or at least so I've understood it.

The younger TDE player generations, however, grew up with this.
They grew up with something that was called "Greyturia" by the other faction. It was far more "dark & gritty" than the first Aventuria "feeling" had ever had.
And to them - Greyturia is something normal !

The current developments seem to indicate that Greyturia becomes the new "standard" in how Aventuria is perceived - at least that's how I see it, purely personally - simply because this is "normal" to the younger genertations, here, there, and everywhere. In video gaming and in Fantasy Literature as well - "Dark Fantasy" is the newest fashion in gaming and in Fantasy Literature as well - just look at all of these "Vampire" novels. (Personally, I'd even count the latest Terry Pratchett Discworld novels into "Dark Fantasy", because they are mostly dark & gritty nowadays, too.)

To me, as a member of the "RFAiry Tale Aventuria" faction, the (almost literal) "death" of the Drakensang offline games, its studio, and one of the voice actors (the voice actor for the permanently confused wizard had died after Drakensang 2) is highly symbolic : It is a sign (to me) that this "Fairy Tale Fantasy" just isn't wanted anymore. It is "out of time", it is so ancient that people just cannot or don't want to understand it anymore.

In my opinion, Dragon Age broke Drakensang's neck. It was far more what people wanted - and it gave a clear hint into the "dark & gritty" future of the whole genre - in gaming, that at least.

People often say that Drakensang is "too cute", "too well-behaved" and "troo nice" for current gamers. This especially to a generation that grew up with WWII shooters (that apart from the question whether shooter players do play RPGs, too).

To me, this is no more "my theme" in gaming (and in Literature probably, too).
Me, I'm more and more feeling like an ancient relict, out of time, like an alien.

Younger gaming generations have seemingly taken over, and meanwhile I consider "change of time" a good thing (in pribciple), I choose to withdraw myself more and more from gaming, and within gaming, back to where I came from : Adventure games. There are stil Adventure games out there which are *not* "dark and gritty", and that's where I turn to.

(Apart from that I'm since about one year member of a TDE pen & paper role playing group - and we are currently playing one of the newer TDE campaigns, the so-called "Drachenchronik", which is a bit set apart from the current Aventuria - and I have had a LOT of good luck that we are all more or less same-minded players who don't like "Greyturia" in its current extreme form ! - I'm playing an Half-Elf, by the way ;) )
 
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What the hell are you all going on about? What greyturia? If anything, Daedalic's art style (and that of Chains of Satinav, their only TDE game so far) has always been kind of cutesy. Not exactly my little pony kind of pukeworthy cutesy, but kind of Lucas games meets Tim Burton style cutesy. At this point i very much doubt we will see anything darker than that, because all of their adventure games have had that basic look so far.
 
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Chains of Satinav is in my opinion very dark for Daedalic's style.

What I like to play right now is the "Book Of Unwritten Tales" : Very cute look, lots of fine humour, and it sold very, very well.
 
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