Here we are in 2016, 17 years after the original Planescape Torment hit the scene and became a cult classic. This is finally the year for the spiritual successor to become a reality. I’m proud to tell you that Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta will be coming to all eligible backers during the week of January 17th and to Steam Early Access on the 26th of January. The team is incredibly passionate about this game and it shows in every aspect of their work. Having the opportunity to create a wholly original experience and intricate world is exactly why we got in the games business to begin with.
The beta will start you right in the beginning of the game and is quite lengthy for an early beta. It covers the game's introductory sequence (some of which you may have already seen a portion of in the alpha) as well as most of the first major location of the game, Sagus Cliffs. Sagus is a very old city that was built on top of ancient structures that predate the return of humanity to the Ninth World. It's split into five main districts: Circus Minor, Cliff's Edge, Caravanserai, Government Square and the Underbelly. As you might expect from a city location, it is rich in lore to discover, characters to talk with and obviously quests to complete!
Of course, we'll be looking to gather your feedback and use it to improve the game. During the alpha, we had a direct feedback form in the game and we'll likely provide that again, as it turned out to be an excellent way for us to gather feedback in a way that was easy for us to parse and implement. Indeed, many points from alpha feedback informed our design decisions during beta production, iteration is after all key to making our games. I look forward to gathering more unique insights from this release.
In a future update we'll talk more about the details of the beta release, but during the lead-up to the beta we will be providing you with new information on what it contains such as profiles of individual locations and discussion of characters and game mechanics. Keep an eye out in coming weeks for updates, starting with today's setting and design details.
