Broken Roads - Preview @ Gameffine

Exploring Broken Roads -- A post-apocalyptic RPG where you forge your path through a collapsed Australia

Making a role-playing video game has never been easier. The advent of crowdfunding, the Early Access model, readily accessible engines like Unity, as well as the advancements made in videogame development are helping smaller studios make their dream RPGs, the way they want. The past couple of years saw the release of excellent indie RPGs like Age of Decadence, Underrail, ATOM, Encased, and Disco Elysium that provided players with hours of entertainment or, in the case of some, defied the traditional RPG tropes to fulfill a far more cerebral experience.

Broken Roads, the debut title from Drop Bear Bytes (what an assortment of random cool words) aims to do the same for the RPG genre -- standing on the shoulders of genre classics such as Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and Planescape: Torment while challenging players with complex moral choices in an original setting. All the classic CRPG tropes such as overworld exploration, questing, combat, adventuring with companions, unexpected encounters, and a sense of discovery are present in the game, all the while featuring some gorgeous art by Kerstin Evans. Broken Roads is expected to launch for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in late 2021.

Recently, I got to pick the brain of Craig Ritchie, the founder and game director of Drop Bear Bytes regarding the game they have been making since early 2019. Here's what I found out!

Trouble Down Under

Broken Roads, at its core, is a traditional isometric RPG that puts you in a criminally-underused Western Australian setting in the aftermath of the apocalypse. Now, if you say oh it's set in Australia, so it must be like Mad Max, you couldn't be further from the truth. Broken Roads - initially conceptualized as a post-nuclear Heroes of Might and Magic style game, ditched the strategy and resource management elements in favor of a narrative-driven isometric RPG early on. While the game tips its hat to classic films like Mad Max, A Boy, and His Dog, Threads, and Stalker, it's heavily inspired by Cold War and post-Cold War era movies in which the threat of nuclear annihilation is really front and center, as well as post-Plato philosophical ideologies.

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HiddenX said:

Your reviews and previews are always a good read - thank you!

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forgottenlor said:

Just a question for anyone who knows. Do you get to create most of the characters in your party at the start like in Wasteland 1-3, or are you adding companions like in Fallout or Baldur's Gate?

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5. Does the game have companions? Please share some info on them if you can?

Yes, and we going to allow up to 5 companions, all of whom are predefined characters with personalities, stories, motivations, fears, desires and of course their own moral leanings - so what you do can and most likely will affect their attitude towards you. We are not writing in complete disbanding/allowing companions to leave you, but they might not be willing to engage in certain quests, can suffer penalties if they don’t like what you’ve done (say you do something morally abhorrent, one of your better-natured companions could suffer morale penalties and find themselves with lower Initiative and thus acting later in combat for a period of time).

I want the team to develop out the characters further before we go too deep into who they are and what they’re about, but we have seven designed and mostly written already. Much more to come on that topic in the future!

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Saxon1974 said:

Normally I donk like an art style that looks a bit cartoony but I like the look of this one. Will keep an eye on it.

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yemeth said:

The team that worked on the art of Shadowrun RPGs are also working on this one.

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