Now that we have closed our Game of the Year awards, it is time for the very first Game of the Decade and obviously we mean RPGish Game of the Decade. Our very own lackblogger has volunteered to do all the heavy lifting and process all your votes into a list that shows what the role playing game of the decade is.

Here is what each voter has to do:

Imagine your own personal Games of the Decade list and PM it to lackblogger. There are no rules regarding form or content, lackblogger will sort it all out in the wash.

What he wants is for everyone to just PM him their list of personal nominations.

you can vote for just one game. you can vote for 809 games, it makes no difference to him.

You can say in the PM how you want the weighting for each game you list. you can do a personal top 10, a personal top 100, or say you want every game on your list to be equally weighted, or you can provide tiers, you can provide the info in any way that you like, lackblogger will sort it all out so it all still works.

This main thread for the vote is an official RPGWatch vote thread but this thread will only be used for people to ask questions and advertise what they voted for, only PM'ed votes will count.

Questions about the poll should not be PM'ed to lackblogger, that's what the thread will be for. Questions sent as PMs will not be answered. If someone gets all spammy you'll be warned that you will be reported… and then be reported if you continue to spam him.

People will be allowed to change their vote right up until the last minute.

Voters will have to be prepared to get PMs back if thre are questions about their specific selections, such as vagaries, typos, versions, etc.

The list of 809 games from the RPGWatch database can be found here, for people to use as a guide to jog their memories if needed, but it wont link to any voting forms or anything.

The list of games is just a dump from the RPGWatch database and there are situations which might be confusing, for example, Divinity 2 was released in 2009, so can't be voted for, yet Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance and Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga were released in 2010. If you vote for one, do you also vote for the other, or arre you secretly voting for Divinity 2 or not? We have set no rules for anything that could be confusing, like this. Just send your votes and explain what you meant with your votes to lackblogger and it is up to him to sort it all out.

Voting will close on 28th February 2020 at midnight in Tonga.

I assume that given the fact that lackblogger needs to be PMed that it is clear you need to be a registered member of RPGWatch.

Once the voting has been closed, expect lackblogger to come up with a complex algorithm that includes all the possible variables, which will result in a list that we will then name the official RPGWatch Game of the Decade list.

Happy voting!

@Gematsu New DLC for Outward called The Soroboreans will launch this spring.

Outward downloadable content pack “The Soroboreans” will launch this spring, publisher Deep Silver and developer Nine Dots Studio announced.

Here is an overview of the downloadable content, via Deep Silver:

[...]

Corruption 2029 has been released on the Epic Game Store.

GamePressure share their list of the most anticipated RPGs of 2020.

Dark Envoy

1. Genre: RPG
2. Release date: 2020
3. Platforms: PC, PS4, XONE
4. Developer: Event Horizon

I have a feeling that Dark Envoy may turn out to be one of the biggest surprises of this year. Or maybe I'm just being seduced by every trailer with Blues Saraceno music?

Dark Envoy was announced as an ambitious, complex video game, which draws inspiration from Mass Effect, and above all from the Divinity: Original Sin series. This means that we'll get a powerful tactical RPG with turn-based combat, a great world to explore, and complex relationships between heroes. The main protagonists are two siblings who are repairing their parents' ship to embark on a great expedition.

The world itself also looks promising as it mixes the arcane-punk style (a combination of magic and technology) with a spaghetti western. The world is dominated by people who have brought old races to the brink of extinction due to their new technology. The reality presented in such a way creates a great opportunity for good scriptwriters to show off. We will visit vast lands, cities and dungeons (the latter are randomly generated), discover their secrets and take part in battles with powerful opponents. Our tactical skills and abilities will decide whether we end up victorious. We'll embark on this journey alone or, like in Divinity, in cooperation mode.

The Event Horizon has developed quite a successful Tower of Time, so we can remain calm about the quality of this Dark Envoy.

Thanks Farflame!

Warlander will be released February 26th.

loading...

Play as a resurrected hero on the road of vengeance. Every path you explore in the procedurally generated world is different, full of dangers and opportunities alike. Aim precisely and slice through the flesh of your enemies in a unique take on stamina-based combat! Progress by becoming stronger and more skillful, either by chopping your way across the battlefield or by using abilities to turn the environment into a deadly weapon. Sacrifice enemies to appease the ancient god and get access to powers based on ancient druidic magic. If you die - you will be returned to life - at the cost of your progress and experience. You live to fight another day, over and over again… so that eternally hungry deity may receive offerings in blood!

Slicing beings on February 26, 2020!

A new race and Spanish localization are the next stretch goals for the Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Kickstarter:

The Next Stretch Goal: A Rocking Race and Spanish Localization

23 archetypes are marching into Wrath of the Righteous! Thanks to your support, they will successfully reach their destination and increase the number of options (and rerolls).

Our next stretch goal will be 2-in-1! A new race and a Spanish localization.

New Race - Oread

Presenting oreads—descendants of outsiders from the Elemental Plane of Earth. Oreads are solidly built, their skin is colored in stony shades of black, white, brown, and gray. They have crystalline spikes for hair and eyes like glowing gemstones. Stoic and patient, they are unmovable like mountains, yet unstoppable like an avalanche when propelled into action.

[...]

The Turn Based Lovers have interviewed the devs of Glorious Companions:

10 Turns Interview with Glorious Companions Developers

Have you ever thought about how hard life was during the medieval age? Diseases, famines, poor hygiene and a lot of violence: in other words, nothing really pleasant. Now, if this is true, the question is: why videogames and videogamers are so attracted by this historical period?

In truth, I don’t have a real answer but I can’t stop asking myself this question.
I can just assume that the presence of so much violence and the validity of the law of the strongest were the ideal soil for the birth of heroes and legends. And everybody knows that where there are heroes and legends there are also a lot of videogames!

Anyway, if the medieval age doesn’t seem to you tough enough, try to think how hard could be living in a medieval fantasy world, with dragons, orcs and all those horrible monsters.

Glorious Companions is set exactly in a world like this, a harsh world full of people (and monsters) who live only to kill you. You are wondering what can you do in response? 

It’s simple, fight for your own life!

1st TURN) Someone defined your game as an interesting blend of Mount & Blade and Heroes Of Might & Magic. I’ve also found many similarities with Battle Brothers. Now tell me, what differentiates Glorious Companions from these games? In other words,
which are the original ideas behind your game?

We get compared to Battle Brothers a lot and I agree that both games are in a pretty similar vein, though contrary to what some people think, we started the development of Glorious Companions long before we’ve heard about BB. To be more precise the first iteration of GC came to life as far as back in 2009.
Anyway, to answer your question:
First of all, our game features races and classes. Games like Battle Brothers and Mount & Blade has a medieval setting that doesn’t allow them to work much in terms of unit variety. In this regard, we are more similar to Heroes Of Might & Magic, but our units are much more customizable and you get to level them up, train them and equip them as you please.
Moreover, because our game is grounded in a fantasy setting, we get to go pretty wild in terms of unit abilities and their design. In Glorious Companions each race has their own resource and magic rules. Additionally, each unit has its own skill tree and they’ll only get to equip a limited number of abilities at a time. There’s your basic active abilities, passive abilities as well as what we call Master Abilities and Captain Calls. It gives us a whole new facet of gameplay that the other games don’t have. Another thing is that our combat system works really well in a multiplayer environment, and it is in fact the real origin for the game itself. Initially, we planned to make a PC wargaming multiplayer game, but we decided to work on a single-player experience first to gain some footing in the genre.

Fun fact: We got our own internal multiplayer league where everyone gets to play a BO3
on Friday. You won’t believe how feisty it gets, haha.

[...]

Player2 reports that Broken Roads have hired Colin McComb as their Creative Lead.

RPG Legend Lends His Talents to Broken Roads

While wandering among the indie titles at PAX last year my attention was drawn to Broken Roads, an isometric RPG set in a post-apocalyptic Western Australia. While the small slice of the game on show looked gorgeous, the prospects of the 360-degree morality system and its effects on the gameplay had me hankering to see more. Now the team at Dop Bear Bytes has gotten even stronger with the addition of Colin McComb as the Creative Lead.

[...]

Drew Karpyshyn talked about the reasons he is joining Archetype Entertainment on his personal blog.

Archetype Entertainment

Posted on February 11, 2020 by Drew Karpyshyn

Fextralife interviewed the devs of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous additionally Owlcat shows what goes into texturing character models.

loading...

In this video, we'll be covering the interview we did with Owlcat Games Creative Director Alexander Mishulin about their upcoming game Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

loading...

There are three things you never get tired of watching: burning fire, running water, and other people doing their job well. Today we’ve prepared an extremely sped-up video of our texturing process for character models in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. It took our artist around 52 hours of work to finish this texture! And you are able to watch the whole process in just 6 minutes.

Thanks Farflame!

The Lays of Althas: Sundered Order has a new update about landscape texture improvements.

Talking to our “Environment Artist” Kevin Eriksen about the new created shaders for the game.

Posted by gsyoung on Feb 12th, 2020

A new dev update for Solasta: Crown of the Magister shows off the WIP World Map, new face meshes, textures, and cutscenes.

Hello dear readers!

How are you doing? It's February already, and we're starting to iron out the first few hours of our campaign. Let us share with you some of the new stuff we've added to the game! Also, don't forget that the votes for the next mayor of Caer Cyflen are still going strong! If you haven't already, make sure you do your civic duty and go vote, citizen of Solasta.

World Map - Traveling the Badlands

Back in mid-November 2019, we shared with you a concept art of our World Map - which would be used to go from location to location. For those who may not have seen it or simply don't remember, here is what it looked like:

Today, we're happy to show you the first iteration of the World Map... in-game! Of course, there are still tons of adjustments and polish we need to do, but it's finally here and it's functional. Next step, implementing random events and encounters!

And we're experimenting around with the Day & Night cycle as well!

Say That to my Face!

If you paid attention to all our screenshots so far, you might have noticed (DC 10 Investigation Check) that we're always using Garrad, Violet, Rhuad and Vigdis. And to a lesser extent, Lena and Dek - the two scavengers you met at the entrance of the Ruins of Telema. This was mostly because we didn't make any additional faces yet, as we were mostly focused on creating new monsters, doing research on armor and the like. However, these days will soon be over!

Here are a few of the upcoming faces for PC and NPCs! And don't worry they won't all be bald, we'll have hair too I promise.

Pink Adventurers, Assemble!

New faces are not the only things we're adding these upcoming days; we're also bringing new armors and clothings onboard! Adventurers will soon be able to select from a new and improved range of armors, as well as remove their protection without going nude. Not that running through the prison tutorial with a nude character wasn't funny the first few times, but we're pretty sure it would a bit of an issue if we were to release the game in that state. 

You might be wondering: "Why are they all pink?" The answer is pretty simple - we still need to add some textures! Not that we dislike the color mind you, but I don't believe adventuring in a shiny pink armor would help with those Stealth checks. Here is an example of what they should look like after we're done adding textures:

Working on Cutscenes 

Cutscenes have always been an important part of our game, as we want to avoid throwing lengthy block of texts at our players every time they encounter a new NPC. Note that some games out there do the latter very well - we're not saying it's a bad thing per se - however it is not what we're going for. This is why we've been doing a lot of work to improve our cutscenes: tweaking facial expressions, experimenting with more camera angles, looking out for tiny details that would sometimes throw characters into the uncanny valley... We're no AAA studio, but you can be sure that when our community shares negative feedback with us, we'll lend an ear and attempt to fix the issue.

[...]

Operencia: The Stolen Sun is coming to Steam, GOG, PS4,and Switch March 31st.

loading...

Zen Studios’ modern homage to classic first-person dungeon-crawlers takes you to the land of Operencia, an unconventional fantasy world inspired by a faraway land referenced in countless Central European folktales. An old-school turn-based battle system combines with inspiration from unexplored mythology to offer an RPG experience that feels unique yet also familiar.

Thanks Couchpotato!

The action RPG UldreVoid will be released as Early Access version in the first quarter of 2020:

UldreVoid

loading...

The Early Access version of Urtuk: The Desolation is now available on Steam:

Urtuk: The Desolation

Urtuk is an open-world RPG with tactical turn-based battles in a dark, low fantasy world.

Journey with a band of adventurers across an old, destroyed world. Fight your way through harsh environments. Recruit new followers, loot gear. Try to survive.

Features

• Survival RPG with focus on combat and world exploration in a dark fantasy world
• Tactical turn-based combat with large maps, and environmental tactical options and carefully throughout class/skill system
• Procedurally generated survival campaign
• Upgrade your characters with extracts from fallen enemies
• Hand-drawn graphical assets, from the world-map to battlefield, along with all characters and map objects

Story

The world in the game is a place of pain, suffering and darkness, set with (light) fantasy features. Urtuk is the name of main character. His story begins when he escaped from the Senatorium, a place where medical experiments take place on common people.

Urtuk has suffered a mortal disease, a mutation in the Senatorium. With every day, his health condition worsenes.. Now he searches for a cure in the world. It's only a matter of time, when his mutation evolves to a level, when he finally dies.

The world is set into dark, grimy theme. There are no classic fantasy beings like elfs, dwarfs or dragons, nor powerful magic, although there are some light magical features involved.

Many centuries ago, there were powerful Giants roaming the world. They lived peacefully with humans until a war between Man and Giant began.

Now the Giants are extinct. Some years ago, few librarians studied the bones and remains of ancient Giants. They did experiments and found out, they can extract a mystical fluid from their remains - Life Essense. With this, they could add many beneficial elements into human body. Not yet known, what exact impact this fluid on a human has, the experiments continue.. Very often, instead of improving the health condition of the targe, an opposite effect would take place, inflicting a mutation or lethal disease. This was the case of Urtuk.

The English version of Banner of the Maid is now available on Steam:

Valentine's Day update! The English localization is now available!

English localization available:

Bonjour révolutionnaires! The time has finally come: Banner of the Maid is now available in English! The English localization is immediately available as a free major update: if you already own the game, it will update automatically; if you purchase it now, it will be already in English.

But that's not all, we've got a surprise for you: The Oriental Pirate, the second DLC (and the first paid DLC) of Banner of the Maid that also releases today, is already localized to English. You won't have to wait to have Mu Zhiyun the Piratess leading her Oriental Pirates to battle!

We want to thank our community for their help beta-testing the localization. We are a small indie dev team, and all this would have been just impossible without your help! If you want to send us any feedback or suggestion, join our community in the official Steam forums or our Discord channel, or ping us on Twitter or Facebook.

Click here to learn：How to transfer your beta save files to release version.

New DLC - The Oriental Pirate:

Adds a new playable character, Mu Zhiyun, and a new unit, the oriental pirates, to your roster. The pirates can use both musket and blade in battles.
The pirates can loot extra treasures (collector's items & special weapons) from certain enemies with their Heroic Attacks.
Purchase the DLC and check out the new quest "The Oriental Pirate" in the salon. Complete the quest to unlock Mu Zhiyun and her pirates.

Story Mode:

Added a new, easier mode for players who focus on the story rather than the combat.
In the Story Mode, you start the game with more resources and start each mission with a boost effect.

Miscellaneous:

• [NEW] Added emotional voices to dialogues and city interfaces.
• [NEW] Added subtitles for in-combat voices.
• [NEW] Added dialogues for side quest: "The Merchant, the Drunk and the Food", "A Defeated Opponent", "Journal of the Nameless" and "Enemy of the People".
• [NEW] Added achievements for completing the main campaign in Officer and General modes. You'll automatically receive these achievements if you have a saved data with the main campaign completed.
• [NEW] Added a language selection interface for first-time players. You can change the language setting later in the Options menu.
• [NEW] Added an entrance for the Credits interface.
• [Change] The advantage and disadvantage chart is now shown when you deploy units.
  [Change] Some enemy reinforcements that appear during the Enemy Phase will not take action immediately.
• [FIX] Fixed Paulette's in-combat voices.
• [FIX] When the saved data is broken due to accidental termination of the game, you can still read the unbroken saves.

A new video for Wasteland 3 shows some new areas.

loading...

Let's not WASTE any words today: Happy Valentine's Day, Rangers! ❤️ Pre-order now: www.wasteland3.com

The final part of the four part Earth Rising expansion for Star Control: Origins has been announced.

Stardock announced the final installment of its 4-part expansion to Star Control®: Origins™ today. Earth Rising - Part 4: Earth Rises introduces players to exciting new adventures, including bar fights at Kapteyn's Bar, the reluctant return of a God, a search for a missing Commander, and more.

 

Star Control: Origins is set in the late 21st century. The player is the Captain of Earth's first interstellar starship with the mission to explore the galaxy, find allies to help protect Earth from hostile aliens, and find the resources necessary to help Earth expand to the stars.

 

Earth Rises is the final part in a four-part expansion pack called Earth Rising. The expansion adds a host of new aliens, ships, adventures and destinations to the already rich universe introduced in Star Control: Origins. Because Star Control is a non-linear action/RPG game, the new content does not require the player to have already completed the main story arc from the base game.

 

Highlights of Earth Rises include:

• New Missions & Quests - Search for the missing Commander Magara, keep an eye on the humans developing a deadly Terran Battlecruiser, and stop the Measured from harvesting a sun and killing an entire civilization.
• New Location - Visit Kapteyn's Bar to hear the latest gossip, triumph in a bar fight, and pick up bounty hunting quests.
• New Battles - Lead your fleet into epic battles against massive space stations.
• New Weapons - Take on enemies with an arsenal of new weapons like the Black Hole Array or the Charged Warhead.

Star Control: Origins - Earth Rising is now available for purchase for $19.99 on Steam. Currently, the first 3 parts are available to play until part 4 arrives.

Development on Bloom is still moving forward, slowly.

Hey everyone, figured it was time for another update. 

Since the failed KSer to get a bit of extra support... I've continued to just chug away at the project. Crowdfunding has changed a lot (games in general have changed a lot!) over the last few years, and visibility is tougher than ever.

Heck, even the way Steam works now aday is completely different (with a huge emphasis on wishlists, as I've probably mentioned before). 

I'm still navigating through it all and trying not to make the  same mistakes I've made in the past (like with Labyrinth). 

Then there are topics on development, what still needs to  be done, the perils of making your game known and money.

4) Money money money.

This is constantly the big hurdle. None of this would be that difficult with some types of funds. It just becomes exponentially more difficult when trying to do a game like this with nothing (not just in execution, but personally). The big question is just how to navigate it all with such limitations.

At this point the game is actually worth "something", so it makes less and less sense to go find other work and come back in a couple years or something (that approach would make life easier in the short term, but more difficult longer term I suspect). 

I've also sent out an early build to publishers. So maybe some of them want to get behind the game? But, again, that sort of thing is a very long shot.

KSer didn't work out last time (like I mentioned before, KS visibility is a lot harder now aday. They even have a "wishlist' type feature now for pre-marketing!). But I guess that is still an option in the next months (maybe with an influencer build and longer pre-marketing thing?).

Hmmm, yea, just the same issues as always I guess. Year after year trying to get this thing funded (as you all know, the bit we got from this first KSer ended up being used by the time James left and I had to restart with someone else....since then it's been quite the journey). 

To celebrate that Kingdom Come Deliverance has been released on the 13th of February 2018, The game is now free on Epic store for one week, is discounted on Steam for 50% untikl the 18th and the Original Sound Track has a 60% discount on Steam.

You can also get your own Codex poster.

If your game is pirated by Codex, it is like the award of the bad guys.

So we made it a poster and hang it on a wall in our office.

 

As this was a highly discussed topic on social media and Reddit, when you discovered about it, we decided to even go a step further, and make it available for everyone! You can get your own Codex Poster on Displate now.

 

And there are more motifs available as well.

DSOGaming reports on a gameplay video for tactics game Corruption 2029.

The Bearded Ladies have released a first gameplay video of their new IP, the tactical strategy game CORRUPTION 2029. The video explains the background story set in a dystopian America and shows several ways to solve conflicts against the inhuman enemies that got infected by the CORRUPTION.

[...]

loading...

A new update for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous announces turn based will be apart of the game.

TheGG reports that Lovecraftian horror/adventure game Innsmouth Case will be coming to PC.

WIESBADEN, GERMANY (JANUARY 30, 2020) — Publisher Assemble Entertainment, best known for point-and-click adventure Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, and developer Robot Pumpkin Games, today announced “The Innsmouth Case“, a choose-your-own-adventure game set in the mysterious and foreboding Lovecraft universe. Scheduled for a Spring 2020 release on PC, Mac, iOS, and Android, The Innsmouth Case takes players on a truly harrowing and fantastical journey where nothing is what it seems.

To solve the enigmatic disappearance of little Tabitha Marsh, the most clever detective is not only wanted but desperately needed. Unfortunately, that particular detective is busy, so the case goes to you! Pack your belongings and prepare to head to the remote fishing village of Innsmouth, as The Innsmouth Case awaits!

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

Gematsu reports that Tears of Avia will be releasing Summer 2020.

PQube will publish CooCooSqueaky-developed turn-based strategy RPG Tears of Avia for Xbox One and PC this summer, the company announced.

Here is an overview of the game, via its official website:

[...]

loading...

Thanks Farflame!

A recent update for post-apocalyptic adventure game Beautiful Desolation announces that it will be releasing soon.

Three years ago we came to you with an idea for an adventure game. You saw the potential in BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION and joined us in making it a reality. 

Enjoy the 2020 trailer below! 

loading...

[...]

GOG has joined us as a DRM-free partner (Backers, don't forget to fill in your backer survey to make your choice).

You can wish-list on GOG here; 

https://www.gog.com/game/beautiful_desolation

Our Steam page is here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/912570/BEAUTIFUL_DESOLATION/

Soon...

These extra two months grace from our planned release date has resulted in a huge amount of additional content and polish. We know it will be well worth it! Thank you for your patience. 

We are aiming for an end of February launch (isn't that exciting?!), although this entirely depends on any show-stopping bugs that may pop up. Rest assured though, we've already had our internal testers complete the game - and are personally testing it to the limits in studio.

Thanks Farflame!

With the BattleTech expansion complete Harebrained Schemes announced it is working on two new projects in a recent update.

Now, with our season pass at an end, HBS is going to focus on two brand new non-BattleTech projects. Our last free update, BATTLETECH Update 1.9, will release in late February. After that, BATTLETECH will continue to maintain customer support. 

Here's a video of Mitch saying all this but with more "Mitch".

loading...

Thanks Farflame!

Northernlion checked out Urtuk: The Desolation, which will enter Early Access on Friday:

Tactical Strategy RPG - Urtuk: The Desolation (Northernlion Tries)

loading...

Rhykker has reviewed Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, which will be released tomorrow:

Wolcen Full Release: First Impressions (Gameplay Review)

loading...