Book of Heroes - New The Dark Eye Game

A new game set in the The Dark Eye universe is in development and is supposed to be available in the second quarter of next year. The game is named Book of Heroes and looks to be made for the German market. Even the English version of the games' webpage is in German.

Here is what I translated from the German text on that page.

The Dark Eye is an RPG system that enables groups of players to adventure in its fantasy world. TDE has a long tradition; the first version appeared already in 1984. Book of Heroes is developed in cooperation with its license owner Ulisses Spiele, who's cooperation ensures that the game will meet the requirements of RPG fans.

Book of Heroes is a classic RPG using a top-down view and fast, intensive dungeon crawls with co-op (up to 4 players) using procedural generated maps. Playing solo with 3 additional AI controlled characters is also possible. The universe of The Dark Eye will provide the ideal setting for many familiar characters, places and events.

Here is a trailer with almost no information:



Gamers Global has a bit more information, mentioning it is a tactical RPG and that Winifried Philips, who also worked on Assassin's Creed 3 and God of War, is repsonsible for the soundtrack.

The site of the game also features these screenshots:


Thanks Moorkh, for providing this information.

More information.

Looks worse than Drakensang (Unity?) and will play worse (retardedAI because it's ment to coop4).
I ought to dance when I saw the title, but after reading about details… Such a shame.

"Die Bart, Die. No one who speaks German could be an evil man." The Simpsons

The Bart The.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaXigSu72A4

As a Dark Eye fanboy I already got hyped by merely reading the headline… but this doesn't seem to be a full-fledged RPG. Mini roller-coaster.
So I'm relaxed again and waiting for more information.

Aye, the information available right now seems pretty limited, so I'll be watching for future updates. The fast and intense descriptions don't give me a lot of hope.

Isometric Drakensang? Perhaps even turn-based? One can hope.

Originally Posted by rjshae
Isometric Drakensang? Perhaps even turn-based? One can hope.

Nope. According to Gamers Global it's a "Topdown-Realtime-Tactical-RPG".

Also notable: There won't be any micro-transactions.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
Nope. According to Gamers Global it's a "Topdown-Realtime-Tactical-RPG".

Also notable: There won't be any micro-transactions.

Well, it's still better than the camera angle in the original Drakensang.

I'm a bit excited, but what I want is a 3rd Drakensang. This seems not to be it…

Interesting… keeping on radar.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
but this doesn't seem to be a full-fledged RPG.

Why is that? The "co-op (up to 4 players) using procedural generated maps" also gave you this impression?

I really enjoyed the Drakensang games, here is hope that they'll do more of the same.

I like the universe, but this indeed does not look like a very promising attempt. The Dark Eye has great stories to tell, a huge and authentic world.
But the combat was already quite bad in the Drakensang games, it wasn't very good in Blackguards and I am not so sure it's wise to focus on that.

Also remember that not everything with TDE on it is gold. There isn't just the "meh" Blackguards and the subpar Remake of the Blade of Destiny, the Hack & Slay Game Demonicon. There is also a browser game (actually have no idea how good it is: http://www.dsa-games.de/ ) and there was even this thing:

Originally Posted by gabrielarantest
Why is that? The "co-op (up to 4 players) using procedural generated maps" also gave you this impression?

Yep. And the focus (?) on “fast, intensive dungeon crawls“.

I still hope to be wrong.

the thing is, i think the majority of "the dark eye " or dsa players in germany desperately long for a serious RPG like the old drakensang games and not some diablo clone and sadly it sounds as if the latter is true….

If memory serves, TDE ruleset really shines outside of combat, being a much better role-playing ruleset compared to the likes of D&D which largely focus on combat skills/abilities. As such, making combat-focused TDE games always seems a bit of an odd approach, not taking advantage of the strengths of the source material.

Really, really great news. I understand former games journalist Michael Hengst is the games producer and this guy was THE known RPG/Strategy nerd in the late 1980ies and the early 1990ies.

There is a german Twitch video with additional information. Sound is german and a little broken, though.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/465151639?t=02h16m11s

@sir brennus : really informative…. thank you for the link

Thanks for the link.
I hope they're better in making games than in giving presentations. That was hard to watch (despite understanding German).

• procedural generated maps
• fast real time action combat
• coop-game

I skip that one…

Some info I remebered from the twitch presentation:

• Developed by the finish studio Random Potion. The dev team grew from 6 to 10 guys. (That should give an impression of the game's scope/production value.)
• You buy the game once and get all the content.
• The game will feature (up to) 4-player co-op and a single player mode.
• It will not be an MMO. In fact you won't need a server to play. The game is hosted by one of the players.
• There will be 12 professions (classes) and 4 species (races): human, elf, half-elf, dwarf.
• There will be level-scaling.
• Combat will be real time.
• Focus will not be on combat but on player-to-player interaction (just like in P&P) including puzzles. (How this would work out in single-player wasn't mentioned or asked.)
• It's going to be hub-based where the hub is a tavern. From there you can go on to adventures with a scope of 1-3 hours each. (There could be longer ones though. They're not finished yet.)
• There won't be a level-editor in this release. (Perhaps in a sequel.)