inXile Entertainment has just launched its $1.25 million Kickstarter campaign to bring an eagerly anticipated The Bard’s Tale IV to PC some 30 years after the original game released. The original game launched the career of Brian Fargo who at the time helped put Interplay on the development map. The game is scheduled for a release in October 2017. For more details about the project be sure to pledge your allegiance over at the official Kickstarter campaign page.
About The Bard’s Tale IV Press Release:
The Bard’s Tale IV will feature labyrinths and dungeons chock-full of dangerous traps, puzzles, and challenges, as well as the winding streets of the city of Skara Brae and its outlying environments. Exploration will take place in the first-person dungeon crawler style of the original trilogy. With full rights to everything from the original games, the story of The Bard’s Tale IV will center on a new Skara Brae built upon the ruins of the old, returning familiar gameplay concepts such as No-Magic Zones and Magic Mouths.
Utilizing the Unreal 4 engine, The Bard’s Tale IV will also represent a graphical leap forward in the genre, immersing you in a highly detailed and lush world you’ll want to map to its farthest reaches. The Bard’s Tale IV enriches the setting from the original trilogy with Scottish culture, including a soundtrack inspired by Gaelic music.
inXile plans to use photogrammetry to create in-game 3D objects from photos of architecture, taken right in Scotland. With such detailed assets, The Bard’s Tale IV will have intricate interactions, allowing for detailed physical puzzles in the game world, or while inspecting your own items in your inventory to find hidden compartments, latches, and more.
Of course, Skara Brae is not always a friendly place. The Bard’s Tale IV will update the classic gameplay of the originals, featuring a dynamic phase based combat system. Combat will utilize the complex decision making opportunities of traditional phase based combat, but with a constantly evolving enemy strategy and a pacing that keeps you on your toes.
Now in its 12th year of business, inXile entertainment has fully embraced the crowdfunding model, having successfully funded Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera, releasing the first of those to fan and critical acclaim. With those previous successes, inXile will co-fund this game with their fans, matching the $1.25 million goal with their own money if it is met.
“It’s been an amazing last 30 years and I feel so fortunate to continue in the games business for this long.”, says Brian Fargo, CEO. “And it is only because of the incredible support our fans have given us that I’m still here today working on these great role playing games. After so many years, I couldn’t be more excited to revive the classic Bard’s Tale.”
