Tyranny

Obsidian just announced Tyranny, an RPG taking place in a setting where the great battle between good and evil has already happened. And evil won.

Details are sparse right now, but here's the official website.

Link to the announcement trailer.

Paradox is the publisher. Release date is in 2016.

To make life easier, have an embed.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Soooooooo not even a hint of who we're supposed to be? Better be mind-blowing...

I mean, it'll probably be an RPG of some kind.

Think it's set in the same verse as Pillars of Eternity?

We are playing as the evil guys.

I hope so.

I think I read on the Neo GAF thread that you're on the evil side, but you can choose whether you inspire loyalty or fear in others.

Visit my Tumblr! I may say things. The Bureau Project

Any chance that whatever underling you're playing as can overthrow the Evil Overlord you're serving and take over?

From the website:

edited 15th Mar '16 8:57:04 PM by Hylarn

Overlord.

Infamous.

I suppose I should reserve judgment until seeing actual gameplay.

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

I'll admit I'm not especially excited after having heard that kinda pitch quite a lot, so same conclusion here.

I think the spectrums this time is wether you'll be Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil. From what I gathered our protagonist seems likely to be investigator (or Inquisitor). There is going to be lots of dillemas. Which reminds me a bit of Inquisitor. I'm always down for another Obsidian game so I'll wait and see what happens. The world section in the website does have some fluff, if anyone's interested.

Fun little related quiz that was way before the announcement.

edited 16th Mar '16 2:16:20 AM by YoKab

Sounds to me like exactly the same thing as every other karma meter game: you end up being the only important person in the room for arbitrary reasons and make a moral choice that's either saintly or puppy-kicking, which has at most cosmetic effects on the world. The only twist being maybe that your bosses would get pissed off if you're too nice.

I mean, I'm willing to be surprised, but the idea that this sort of pitch would get anyone excited in the Year of Our Lord 2016 seems laughable.

I hope this is more of a Dark Fantasy Judge Dredd, rather than anything traditional. I'd kill for a satirical RPG with some humor mixed in.

---

What?!

• Rantakoo, you ungrateful little punk! How can you expect to get an evil degree with your evil laziness? Your evil parents will be so dissapointled in you if you had any

Not really, but I really hate this evil place, all the other evil kids make fun of my evil raspy voice and behavior! And why is "ungrateful" a complaint anyway?! It means I'm doing the evil just right.

• Maybe if you stopped being charitable that wouldn't be a problem...

Screw you evil Inquisitor, I can quit any evil time I want!

---

Anyway... at the moment we should best reserve judgment until further info, because the game was just announced. Maybe see what the upcoming blog posts will reveal. It's probably gonna be a good game because Obsidian, but hopefully they do something with the idea.

Another crucial detail that has undertandable been ignored for a while: If offered a choice in RPGs you go for the "saintly" option as the "evil" options are poorly fleshed out, pointless and are just too sudden. Ways and reasons beyond "I did it for the lulz" sounds good to me. As for the Karma Meter, I hope they just keep what they did at Pillars of Eternity and stick with that "reputation from different areas" thing.

edited 16th Mar '16 3:48:21 AM by YoKab

The thing is, having an "EEEEVIL SOCIETY" is what exactly? I mean, you can see how batshit it can get with Warhammer's Dark Elves. They barely function.

Guesses and bets on how long into the campaign that you realise your bosses are actually evil and not the "Forthright arbiters of darwinistic justice" but in fact shady fronts for mega-cthulu expies or something?

And then you become good. Or at least an anti-hero.

Now, if they pull off "Imperial officer" or "imperial Agent" levels of "evil" that'd be good. So, more pragmatic but ruthless, rather than baby eating slaughterhouse evil.

My only concern here is the idea of what could constitute anything evil or "bad" anyway - I mean, modern society is arguably one run on selfish acquisition and managed by oligarchs, so they wouldn't have to look too far for inspiration.... but is that an evil society?

I really need to finish Pillars. Keep bouncing off it for some reason.

I think "evil" here is just a buzzword, and what we're getting is more of a case of "What does an evil force do after they win? How do they rebuild and create an effective society?"

edited 16th Mar '16 4:09:12 AM by YoKab

Well, that's the thing. Get too subtle about what evil is and suddenly it's "political" and people are sending you angry letters. Good needs to be obviously good (to everyone) and evil needs to be obviously evil (to everyone), which is why it necessarily becomes a dichotomy of saintly versus puppy-kicking.

Well, both sides being evil sometimes works (SMT comes to mind), but then you run into the problem of making the player feel restricted, which goes against the entire point of these silly Ubermensch fantasies where you, the player, personally decide the fates of everyone else. And, well, that silly Ubermensch fantasy is exactly what the early information is hyping up.

edited 16th Mar '16 4:12:21 AM by Clarste

Exactly. You start as the grand poo-bah of the EVIL EMPIRE and then...?

Better maybe you start as lowly clerk then Gormenghast your way up the corrupt ranks, either backstabbing or manipulating or outright assassinating.

Then you get to dictate at each level, then maybe open up to being the big I-Dictate-Everything and how you maintain that position. That way you can show how a society based on the uber "social darwinism" that an institution would have, amidst a subjugated people, could work.

And yes you could factor in good acts, but show that, with the society as it is, nothing will have much impact. And if you start making too many benevolent changes, have them blow up in your face, or create more issues.

Still, it's Obsidian, so could be a good execution. Not Fable levels of mustache twirling at least.

You are not the big boss here. Just a high ranking officer.

I would say that Kyros's empire might be like Mordor: Tyrannical, but brutally efficient. Hence, you.

I'm not a really up in the Tolkien works, but ain't any efficiency there derives from Sauron's vision of order?...which coming from an (kinda literally) epic Ultimate Evil probably would boil down to something like "If everyone else is under my foot me, no one will conflict"?

Basically. Many people think of Evil as Chaotic, but Order can be evil too because it stifles creativity and free thought.

Anyway the website also has a map of the Tiers but only two locations are clickable at the moment; a trade city that serves as neutral ground, and another neutral area that's basically an academy.

Cover art probably◊

edited 17th Mar '16 7:40:30 AM by YoKab

I think that they'll give you options, but remind you that you're working for a brutal tyranny as one of its agents. For example (and this is only an example and would be terribly hard to implement), when your boss orders you to punish a rebelling city, what do you do? Do you decimate the place as an example? Raze it to the ground? Find out how the governor's been fucking things up and holding back taxes and use him as an example?

Consider the number of moral options you have in Papers, Please, not counting working with the rebels. Do you take a warning and a docked paycheck to let a guy's wife through despite her papers being out of order? Do you take a bribe to let someone through or have them arrested? When your boss orders you to let his mistress through illegally, how do you balance your unofficial obligations to him (and his power to have you arrested on trumped up charges) with the fact that the official system will blame you for letting her through?

Now extend that sort of thinking to this game: do you rigidly enforce all the laws of the Overlord, and if not, for what reasons do you corrupt your office (for personal gain, to help people, or to curry favor from your superiors?), and how do you deal with the fallout from your choice? At least, that's how I'd do it, and how I hope Tyranny does it. This would be something slightly new (even if Papers, Please did it first).

edited 18th Mar '16 2:38:32 AM by Ramidel

Apparently Chris Avellone was the game's Creative Lead during pre-production before leaving the company

New preview. Bit more on setting and mechanics. It's real-time with pausing. The RPG mechanics are classless. Sounds like they got a bit of an expansion on DA2's approval system. Character creation involves choosing how the war played out and thus affects the starting world.

edited 22nd Mar '16 2:00:40 PM by VutherA