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Game News The Waylanders is a historical time travel RPG inspired by Dragon Age: Origins

Infinitron

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Tags: Gato Salvaje; Mike Laidlaw; The Waylanders

Do you like Dragon Age: Origins? Lots of people did back in 2009! Originally intended to be a modernized successor to the Infinity Engine games, as the years have gone by the original Dragon Age has become iconic in its own right, recognized as the last vestige of the old BioWare. So it's not surprising to see a game that claims to be directly inspired by it. It's called The Waylanders and it's a historical time travel RPG set in northern Spain. The developers are a studio by the name of Gato Salvaje from that same region. Unlike most time travel stories, The Waylanders isn't about a modern day individual who goes back in time using a time machine. Instead, the player character will be travelling between pre-Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages by more mystical means. This premise was interesting enough to attract the attention of former Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw, who helped announce the game today in an exclusive reveal at PC Gamer.



The Waylanders is a fantasy RPG from Spanish developer Gato Salvaje, and former Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw is among the staff working on it. Above, you can get a first look at the game in pre-alpha form, narrated by Laidlaw.

The Waylanders has real-time combat with a tactical pause option, and it's inspired by a bunch of RPG favourites, like Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dragon Age: Origins, which you'll probably note from the video. You can play it from a top-down view, or move the camera to third-person, and 12 changeable party formations let you experiment with combat tactics in the game. You'll be able to romance characters, too. In an interesting twist, however, you'll be able to time travel between two different periods.

You'll alternate between Celtic Brigantia, and the Middle Ages where Christianity has "supplanted" a lot of Celtic history. "The Waylanders takes inspiration from the Celtic Mythological Cycle, a rich tapestry that deals with Ireland but also the Celtic region of Brigantia on the north coast of modern-day Spain," the studio explains. Your player character is removed from the cycle of life and death, which allows you to swap between the two periods using magic.

The game's title comes from the Way of St James, or Camino de Santiago, a pilgrim's path that runs across Northern Spain. "These are the people protecting the Way, and protecting the legends, and protecting the spirit of the Way in the game."

"The Celtics believe in reincarnation, so what we are doing, we choose the companions in the Celtic period," says Gato Salvaje's Fernando Prieto. "Then when our main character travels to the Middle Ages, we will have to look for our companions and wake them up. They will be reincarnated in other people, and we'll have to wake them up, but as they are in the middle ages. Only the main character will be able to time travel—our companions won't. [The companions] can be completely different people, though from the moment you wake them up, they'll remember what they did in the Celtic period. But they could be an important warrior in the Celtic period, then a housekeeper in the Middle Ages. That can be very funny, and very useful for the narrative."

You'll complete quests that straddle the two eras, and your party make-up will be different in each period. "You need to solve problems in the Celtic period to advance in missions in the Middle Ages as well. You'll need to be jumping from one period to another. Your companions will be the same, but with different characteristics in both periods." There are mirroring qualities to the two timeframes, like monsters on the loose and usurper kings, and uncovering their connection will be a big part of the story.

There are six basic classes in The Waylanders, then 30 advanced ones on top of that. Each basic class comes with two possible formations you can use for your party. In the video above, you see the party using a phalanx formation—this system is designed to give you tactical flexibility depending on the enemy in question, and so players can easily experiment with it.

"It's not just a way to form the party to move around the scenario, but we want to give deeper tactical options to the game," Prieto says. "So you can use different types of formations in every [instance] of combat, so you have multiple options to finish your mission, faster or not-so-fast. Those tactical options are always available to the players. So you can use formations for different purposes. You can use a phalanx, for example, or an orb, or an arrow formation. We'll have up to twelve different ones in the game. We will offer very deep tactical gameplay. It will be very easy to change from formations to the normal party, so you can try different options."

This is a very different project for the A Coruña-based studio, which has scaled up from just eight people to 40 in making The Waylanders, including new staff who previously worked at Spanish animation companies. "This project began two years ago," Prieto explains. "We are a small company from Spain, and after a lot of analysis, we realised we had to grow and make bigger projects to really survive in the gaming industry. And we began to build this project...we began the pre-production at the end of 2017, and that's the moment when we [approached] Mike to get involved in the project as well."

The Waylanders is targeting an early 2020 release.

Promising or popamole? I guess we'll see - the game is a long way off. What the PC Gamer article doesn't mention is that the developers also appear to have partnered with a tabletop game studio to create a board game version, which will be Kickstarted next month. Perhaps we'll learn more about the game then.
 

Roguey

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Sawyer btfo

Five character parties puts it on one above DA, on par with Deadifre. Potential here I suppose.

Here's an obvious question: Can you romance people in both eras with a single character?
 

Stormcrowfleet

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It looks interesting in terms of storyline. DA:O wasn't too bad as an RPG, even if it was dumbed down.
 

Contagium

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What is "historical" about this again? I don't think it means what they think it means.

Probably because it features real-life subjects such as "Celtic" and "Middle Ages". If that's all they are going off of as far as "historical" goes, it'd be about as deep as DA:O. So I suppose it's fitting.
 

StrongBelwas

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Would be hilarious if you romance someone in the celtic past, but when you go to the middle ages you find out they kinda moved on.
Better- After initiating a romance with a character in the Celtic area, a new companion in the middle ages appears who secretly a descendant and can also be (((romanced))). There is no warning they are related to the MC until it is far, far too late. :troll:
 
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I don't know what to think, which is pretty rare for me.

I guess more RPGs in historical settings and time periods is always a good thing.
 
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"Instead of having the game passively pause for you when it's your turn, we are using an innovative system partly inspired by Dark Souls where you seize the moment by utilizing our new Tactical Pause Button. This completely revolutionizes the classic style of turn-based gameplay by removing that passivity and opening brand new tactical management simulation and giving you, the player, the ability to make Tactical Choices at any moment that you want and thereby achieving that immersive quality that modern AAA games provide."
 

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VentilatorOfDoom

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If this was made by actual Galician developers ala Kingdom Come it would be worth checking at least; but this looks like a cross breed between DAO and Amalure and done by this hack Lewdlow too boot.

:killit:
Aimed at consoles (see the 4 skill slots)... makes it not really appealing because it's obvious it'll be dumbed down crap.
That sjw idiot Laidlaw's presence on the dev team makes it impossible to spend a single eurocent on it anyway.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Seems Laidlaw has embarked on the Avellone career path. Wonder if he's involved in anything else?
 

Jacob

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Grab the Codex by the pussy
Looks like a forgettable project that will somehow gain a niche cult thanks to its cool concept.
 

Commissar Draco

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If this was made by actual Galician developers ala Kingdom Come it would be worth checking at least
Er what
The developers are a studio by the name of Gato Salvaje from that same region.

If they mess up their own history, blame their education system. :M

What VoD has said no chance some millennial cucks from Spain with Laidlaw as creative lead LOL will make at least as decent job as Varva an his team did with KCD. It will have trash gameplay cause of muh streamlining and accessibility and choke full of Negroes and Arabs cause muh inclusiveness. Would love to play game on DAO engine done in setting which is not Feralden but let's face it no chance for this now unless East Europe will make it instead of another Twicher. (which 3rd part was huge :decline: as setting, art direction and game play comes cause of Kwan management)
 

ArchAngel

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Graphics are very wow/cartoon like.
The animations for formation fighting are hilarious.

They didn't show anything tactical in this first combat preview video.
 
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Would be hilarious if you romance someone in the celtic past, but when you go to the middle ages you find out they kinda moved on.
Better- After initiating a romance with a character in the Celtic area, a new companion in the middle ages appears who secretly a descendant and can also be (((romanced))). There is no warning they are related to the MC until it is far, far too late. :troll:

Technically speaking, after hundreds years of breeding, the descendant would not be that much more related to the player than the random person is. If you look long enough you will find some common ancestor with everyone.
 

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