Jagged Alliance 3 - Announced

Jagged Alliance 3 is back:

Jagged Alliance 3 - Announcement Trailer

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A true successor to a beloved franchise - Jagged Alliance 3 is coming soon to PC.

Grand Chien, a nation of rich natural resources and deep political divides, is thrown into chaos when the elected president goes missing and a paramilitary force known as "The Legion" seizes control of the countryside.

In Jagged Alliance 3, select from a huge cast of mercenaries, all with their own unique personalities, quirks, and backstories to find the President and bring order back to the country.

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More information.

Man this announcement came as a surprise today. Like I said in another thread it looks good better then Jagged Alliance: Rage! at least. There calling it part three as well.

Love the confidence with not using a different title instead.

I hereby challenge this game to be good and prove lil cynic me wrong about it being yet another bad attempt at resurrecting the franchise out of nostalgia with little success.

Oh my…first BG3 and now JA3?? My 2 favorite 90's games back-to-back.

Without the Curries, I doubt it will have the same style, but at least it's by an accomplished developer this time. I don't know why Firaxis didn't capitalize on this franchise along with Xcom, as I'm incredibly tired of the half-assed remakes over the last decade.

Here's to another rebirth of the franchise! *cheers*

Sorry but I'm not impressed.

I'm more interested in another announced sequel:

They call it a come-back! Well, I hope they can pull it off, the original Jagged Alliance is, was, and ever shall be, one of the greatest games of all time!

I'll try to manage my expectations while I'm over here squealing in the corner!

I think I will only be happy when they reveal Ivan and if he does the originals justice.

Hm, that reminds me that I wanted to replay 1.13 for a while…

Hey guys! Jagged Alliance 1 GOLD Edition is free on steam today so grab it while you can! (Titan Quest is also free). Probably due to the JA3 announced or THQ's anniversary.

Trailer for JA3 looks decent. Has the old characters, a AP system, decent aiming. The 3D Graphics and portraits are rather a mediocre fit though.

Also not too convincing are the facts that:
1. THQ Nordic is also Responsible for JA Rage
2. The developer is Haemimont who also did Omerta: City of Gangsters which supposedly was a terrible tactics game

Yes, Kordanor, this is what has me concerned as well.

The dev studio has primarily made strategy and city-building titles, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for Jagged Alliance. I stopped playing Topico a long time ago, so I can't speak much about the quality of that series in recent years. However, I know a bit about Omerta, which appears to be their one foray into tactical turn-based combat prior to this new job. The combat in Omerta was particularly simplistic and stood out as the weakest part of the game. Also, the strategic later was weak. The game, overall, was simplistic and boring.

You might think that simply saying - "take this old game and make a modern version of it that's EXACTLY the same as the original without screwing it up" - would be a doable task. Apparently not when it comes to JA.

Maybe this time…

Here's to hoping…and not buying into any hype or hope at all until seeing the final product. I have no hype left to give for JA.

The super brief bordering on screenshot glimpses of gameplay and game screens looked somewhat promising but there wasn't really much shown. I swear one screen looked stripped out of the original - and if they go to that degree of duplication there may be a shred of hope.

I've grown to generally prefer XCOM2 style combat for these types of games and IMO AP-based now generally feels inferior, clunky, tedious, and ancient. That could be because despite having examples from gaming history (like, um, JA!) of how to do it and not make it suck, most devs feel the need to strip down or deviate from the proven and make some fecal-based experiment. Either way.

To me the only way this game is even worth touching is if they do an AP-based system true to the originals (with a top notch modern UI). The stripped down mobile-esque takes on AP-based just don't cut it. Give the people what they want or prepare to join the list of failures.

Originally Posted by Voqar
You might think that simply saying - "take this old game and make a modern version of it that's EXACTLY the same as the original without screwing it up" - would be a doable task. Apparently not when it comes to JA.

Maybe this time…

Here's to hoping…and not buying into any hype or hope at all until seeing the final product. I have no hype left to give for JA.

The super brief bordering on screenshot glimpses of gameplay and game screens looked somewhat promising but there wasn't really much shown. I swear one screen looked stripped out of the original - and if they go to that degree of duplication there may be a shred of hope.

I've grown to generally prefer XCOM2 style combat for these types of games and IMO AP-based now generally feels inferior, clunky, tedious, and ancient. That could be because despite having examples from gaming history (like, um, JA!) of how to do it and not make it suck, most devs feel the need to strip down or deviate from the proven and make some fecal-based experiment. Either way.

To me the only way this game is even worth touching is if they do an AP-based system true to the originals (with a top notch modern UI). The stripped down mobile-esque takes on AP-based just don't cut it. Give the people what they want or prepare to join the list of failures.

Although it might not look like it JA2 and also JA1 are games which went far beyond what's "reasonable" for a game production and there are multiple examples for that.
For example the total number of playable characters and the amount of voicelines. Sure, it might be less than current AAA games, but JA is always somewhat niche and the big difference is also that a normal player will only hear about 20% of that voicelines.
Then think about the movement system. In JA you can't just walk, run sneak, duck and crouch, you can also do this sneaking and you can even do some of that strafing, which is also necessary sometimes due to the interruption calculation. The ballistics calculation is of course also something noteworthy.
On the first look it might seem like JA2 should be easy to replicate but I am pretty sure that it's not. Not with making a profit at least. You will get something like that only from indie developers which go all out on their dreamgame, like Urban Strife maybe. Of course you don't have full voiceover there as that would just be too expensive.

Imho the AP system is far superior over the two action system, which also came with crippinling several other systems in XCom, like the cover system and the enemy detections granting them their extra moves.
There are games which do that right. Like Phoenix Point and also Urban Strife (alpha demo).

The bustling city with civilians playing soccer looks way better than the SHT combat with farked up 3D models they are showing in this trailer!

I think the combat looks pretty good. I mean obviously its 3D. But I don't think not everything is bad just because it is a bit different or looks a bit different as long as the main elements are still there. And it looks like they are.

Combat still has AP. You apparently still can aim with additional AP, and it also seems like there is a still a ballistics calculation, rather than a targetonly calculation like in XCom.

I did an in Depth analysis of the trailer. But unfortunately its German. In case you happen to speak German:

Ok, so here is a list of all the things I have been able to get out of the page and trailer:

Combat & Tactical:
-Still has APs (possibly not a 20/25 base but more like 10/15)
-Probably still allows you to aim with additional AP
-You can aim at different body parts
-You can switch between different shooting modes (Likely Single, Burst, Full Auto)
-Seems to still have trajectory/ray calculation
-Has Overwatch now
-Has a Pindown Mechanic now
-Likely supports multiple height levels now

Strategic Layer:
-You will be able to free Cities
-You will be able to split your group/ have multiple groups
-You will travel via Boat (maybe like the Helicopter in JA2)
-You likely earn money via Diamond Mines

World:
-Probably is located around Africa now rather than Caribbean
-Has Weather
-You will likely still be able to "browse" on your laptop and do stupid things like Flowers to Deidranna

Character and Skills:
-Hiring and paying still seems to work the same.
-Has signature abilities now
-Has Abilities on level up
-Still has the old Character skills (or at least most of them)
-Amount of characters is likely rather high: Ivan, Vicky, Buns, Fidel, Shadow, Len, Tex, Red, Hitman, MD, Igor, Steroid, Wolf. A new character called Feuda. So this are 14 already. And they are mostly from one category. So I'd expect 30 characters at least. Likely even more.

Other:
-Has Cooperative Multiplayer

This gives me a lot of hope.

instant buy when it comes close to JA2 in terms of quality and gameplay.

Originally Posted by joxer
Sorry but I'm not impressed.

I'm more interested in another announced sequel:

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Wait, what? Sorry for the off-topic, but is this real? A sequel to Outcast?
Glorious!

This needs to be frontpage news.

Originally Posted by wiretripped
Wait, what? Sorry for the off-topic, but is this real? A sequel to Outcast?
Glorious!

This needs to be frontpage news.

It's already been shared and posted three times on different threads. Just thought I'd share that before a certain other poster who has a problem with multiple posts.

The announcement surprised me as well but interest in the series seems to be on the rise. I remember the first game got a remaster, but the sequel failed on Kickstarter.