The Banner Saga, by the lead developers of KOTOR

Finished it earlier this week. The final showdown was a tad disappointing, mainly because it came out of nowhere and my Iver is pretty much a walking main battle tank, while my Bolverk slightly more lacklustre, but overall it's a very strong story, packaged with a gameplay that, though not exactly revolutionary, pretty much addressed all my gripes with the previous game.

I particularly enjoyed the floating bridge sequence and every scene with the Sundr Eyeless - the intensity there climbed right off the chart. I also rather liked the way the game put you in control of a badass Sundr-Slayer and a gang of Viking Expendables, then slowly ramps up the conflict to the point where you feel positively tiny and helpless again. The storytelling is on point, and everyone gets their own enjoyable little arcs, even if you don't use all of them in combat.

One thing that irks me is the voice acting for both main characters - sounds to me like a badly-accented answering machine. But really, it's just a tiny speck in the face of an absolute gem of an indie game. 9/10 would raid again.

Yeah, the accents are slightly off-putting.

Banner Saga 3 has a Kickstarter. $200,000 goal. Estimated release date is December 2018.

Funded. First stretch goal is playable dredge.

Oh my, that might be interesting.

Also do you guys think we'll have anything happen related to that baby dredge you have the option to save?

The Kickstarter has ended: it reached $416,986 out of its $200,000 goal.

Stretch goals reached:

• Playable Dredge
• Survival Mode
• Ubin Promoted to Playable
• New "Eternal Arena" mode. Description is vague, but it sounds like a competitive multiplayer thing.

edited 7th Mar '17 9:03:02 PM by lrrose

Nice.

Anything missed if you enter in at Banner Saga 2 instead of 1?

Basically the start of the story and a good bit of lore, along with being introduced to a number of the main characters.

OK. The first one is $19.99 on Xbox One.

Or you could buy it on Steam and import your save.

I got Banner Saga 2 on Xbox One for free.

Ah, cool.

Art reveal. Also confirmation that BS3 has a 2018 release date.

oooooooh boy, can't wait to see how this story ends.

Fasolt character trailer. Also, Stoic is aiming for a Summer 2018 release.

Ooooooh boy. As if stuff wasn't dire enough, we have a possibly homicidal Varl coming for us.

Banner Saga 3 releases on July 24, 2018 on PC, Mac, PS4, XBox One, and Switch.

There's a Dredge Pack preorder bonus that grants you a Dredge companion named Kivi who comes with a unique accessory, unique dredge heraldry, and a bonus song by Austin Wintory.

There's also going to be a Banner Saga Trilogy Bonus Edition for PS4 and XBox One featuring all three games, a "best of" soundtrack, a mini-art book, and a unique in-game accessory.

"Dredge companion"

Uh, I suppose I can guess something that's going to happen in the third game.

Well, the Dredge are running away from something after all. And this won't be the first friendly dredge for this game.

Maybe that baby dredge I adopted in the first game will actually come up again.

Its just awkward when you speak Finnish and you can tell character is named "Rock"

That is the problem with taking fantasy names from random countries, it gets awkward when someone actually understands them

So now that the third game is out, has anyone found an ideal party composition yet?

Man, what a story. I really hope that Stoic will continue to revisit the setting in their future games, maybe even with the same cast. The part of it that survived this one, at least.

At least he's not Dwayne Johnson

Welp, probably gonna be waiting for a while to buy this. Missed my pre-order chance but Stoic said they’ll be lookin for a way to put all the DLC in, so I might wait until then

Unless Kivi is like that other pre-order guy who only appears to drop little hints and has no real effect on the story.