Encased - Joining Koch Media
 

The devs of Encased have announced that they now have a publisher (Koch Media) which means that the game will now be fully voice acted.

Thanks Carnifex!

More information.

Ah yes the were sorry but we need we need more time excuse. Look I'm happy for them but every time a kickstarter game finds a publisher it always comes with an delay.

For reference it's really THQ Nordic as they own Koch Media. Which is now labeled as Embracer Group AB which used to be Nordic Games Publishing AB and THQ Nordic AB

It's true what they say about corporate structures, not even labyrinths are this convoluted.

Yep the main reason was consumers couldn't tell the difference between each branch. As they had two THQ Nordic labels at one point. I don't see how hey it's Corpo.

Funny, I thought they already had a publisher, Black Tower Entertainment.

This article also states that BTE would be a spin-off from DCG (do you also understand the same?), but I couldn't find any confirmation:
I've not really dug deeper, perhaps one of you know more about that?
Labyrinths indeed ;)

Anyway, this game really looks interesting!

BTE is based in Russia and they are the publisher (a publisher? the first publisher?)

At least they do keep the backers informed, which is far more than I could remark about some other past ventures. I don't claim to have any special knowledge of how many organizations that they may be affiliated with, though. All I know is the game looks like something I'd enjoy, and I'm hopeful we'll all get to sample it sometime soonish.

Perhaps a superficial criticism, but… "Encased" is a bad name, in my opinion. It sounds weird, at least to a native English speaker such as myself. Not going to pass judgement on the game itself based on this, but it really sounds weird to have a game called Encased.

(Though I am sick to death of post apocalyptic game worlds.)

It is an odd name, to be sure. Might make a tad more sense if you were tromping around in a mech suit or something =). But it takes more than a quirky name to frighten me away from what might be a worthwhile game!

Haha, yes, I was wondering about the name too, it was probably lost in translation ;)

I think it refers to being in a vault once the apocalypse went down.

Eh the name makes sense as you are living in a giant dome city. So you see in essence you are encased in that Dome. So by that logic the name makes perfect sense.:)

Link - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/encase

To me that's pretty cool news. If they have more time for polishing now and also add voice acting on top, then go for it.

Also from my impression Koch Media is also a rather non-intrusive publisher and I think they often make deals just to bring out physical games in Germany and maybe other regions.

This makes Koch Media somewhat "arbitrary" which for us gamers is probably a good thing. I don't think you would ever think about "a Koch Media Game".
Some of the games they published:
Metro Exodus
Wasteland 3
Saints Row 4
Risen 2
Gothic 3
Sacred 1,2
Tropico 6
Pathfinder Kingmaker
…

Koch Media AKA THQ Nordic is also the one who postponed the steam version of
Metro Exodus after taking pre-orders only to launch as an Epic exclusive instead.

Hopefully they don't pull that shit again with this game. Also some of those games are published by Deep Silver who is a division of Koch Media owned by Embracer Group AB.

So many damn divisions and sub-divisions of that company.:roll:

Ohhh that was a nasty piece of business, to be sure. I'll also hope that those shenanigans are not repeated, and, if they are, I'll have my pitchfork ready for battle.

I played the EA last year and liked it quite a bit. I hear the game is significantly different now as a lot of content has been added since then.

Kind of disappointed about the decision to go with full voice acting here. I don't see how it adds much to a game like this except to extend development time and resources.

Agreed. I understand the fact you need voice acting for a broader market appeal, but I don't think it will help this game in this aspect because its too niche. Those resources could have been better spent elsewhere.

Ah yes, this Epic exclusive was badly received. Encased isn't in the same category, it's even DRM-free (at least on GOG), I don't expect such exclusivity (and DRM) problem to happen.

This is sitting in my Steam library. It's interesting, kind of reminds me of a cross somehow of the old "Paranoia" tabletop game and a Fallout game - you're in a vault, people are color-coded according to job/status, there's a lot of secrecy and randomness going on. It looks like it has the potential to be quite good, and I hope that having a publisher behind them makes the experience even better.

There was an RPG released this year for the "Paranoia" tabletop game. Unfortunately it was garbage and turned out to be terrible. Hardly see anyone talk about it anymore.

Encased is more like Fallout with various factions in the destroyed world.

Yeah I'm fully on board with those that think the voice acting is a bit much, that always seems like a huge waste of resources to me. Put those funds into a longer campaign, or flesh out the companions a bit more with interactive quests or something along those lines, give the buyers some bang for those bucks.

I think that Paranoia: Mandatory Happiness is not even available on the market anymore, at least I can't find it on any digital store :D

I've played for a few hours, it's really enjoyable so far! It's quite fun, too.

A lot of dialogs, and many options that gives the player enough freedom of choice in them, of little consequence for now since I'm still at the beginning. Good interaction with the environment too.

I also like the personality of the different categories of people. It's somehow a little caricatural, but the dialogs are quite consistent with each individual. The way you reply will get you little remarks or sneers, some things you say may change how they'll behave later. It makes the world more convincing.

It's hard to tell if that will remain the same throughout the whole game, and if there are more significant choices later on.

It still needs polishing, there are little bugs or rough edges here and there, but mostly "cosmetics" and nothing really impacting the gameplay.

Yup, I saw that horrible attempt at a tabletop-Paranoia style PC game and it made me sad. Paranoia was a lot of fun and it could have been done very well. I think it was in the Epic store for like a month or two and then just quietly removed. (It was shovelware, by all reviews and accounts I heard.)

Dark Crystal Games gave more information regarding this new publisher deal:
(today in Steam patch release notes)