Game News Disciples: Liberation gets a gameplay trailer, now available for preorder

[Infinitron]

Tags: Disciples: Liberation; Frima Studio; Kalypso Media

Today's Koch Primetime event was completely useless, and the IGN Expo was nothing special either. One thing we did get out of the latter was a gameplay trailer for Disciples: Liberation, the Disciples revival by Frima Studio announced back in February. It's a bit generic dark fantasy, but I'd say the game looks better than it did in the initial batch of screenshots on its Steam page. No BDSM stuff this time, either.

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It looks like Disciples: Liberation was also quietly made available for preorder on Steam yesterday. The game is now scheduled for release in Fall 2021 rather than Q4 2021 (although I'm not sure what the difference is). The preorder discount ends on October 8th, which might be a clue.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Big fan of the series; not a fan of the new King's Bounty art style.

 

[Artyoan]

I need massive armor, face coverings, flowing cloth robes/capes, and a pegasus horse mount.

Or no buy.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

I need massive armor, face coverings, flowing cloth robes/capes, and a pegasus horse mount.

Or no buy.

Yes, the art style is a notable departure from the original (I &II). A bit of a shame...that over-the-top, chunky, gothic visual was a huge part of the appeal of the series to me. Maybe they should've hired Patrick Lambert (the originals' concept artist/art director) to do his iconic designs for the characters.

Overall I don't hate it like I thought I would. The game looks fairly good.

 

[A horse of course]

Disgusting trash. Ban Infinitron.

I need massive armor, face coverings, flowing cloth robes/capes, and a pegasus horse mount.

Or no buy.

Yes, the art style is a notable departure from the original (I &II). A bit of a shame...that over-the-top, chunky, gothic visual was a huge part of the appeal of the series to me. Maybe they should've hired Patrick Lambert (the originals' concept artist/art director) to do his iconic designs for the characters.

Lambert is too busy churning out art for Assassin's Creed #32432424 these days.

 

[vazha]

Why couldn't they revive it with the Disciples 2 looks? That was the pinnacle of the series. Beautiful to behold, Awe-inspiring to listen to, and fun to play.

 

[Alfgart]

Is the MC customizable? I don't want to play as a fugly dyke

 

[Malamert]

So this is what they're doing to Disciples now? What a fucking disgrace. Sickening.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Is the MC customizable? I don't want to play as a fugly dyke

Nope.

 

[A horse of course]

So this is what they're doing to Disciples now? What a fucking disgrace. Sickening.

What do you expect. First r*ssians couldn't take the fact Disciples was better than HoMM(o) so they went in and butchered it with Disciples III. Every new Disciples title spits in the face of God.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I still like the original.

 

[Zeriel]

So this is what they're doing to Disciples now? What a fucking disgrace. Sickening.

What do you expect. First r*ssians couldn't take the fact Disciples was better than HoMM(o) so they went in and butchered it with Disciples III. Every new Disciples title spits in the face of God.

I'm just baffled at how much of a departure from even Disciples 3 it is. What is the point of the brand, even? Why bother? They could have just named it anything else, it's not like there are a ton of mainstream Disciples fans who will buy anything, the ones who recognize the brand will shit all over this for being generic. It reminds me of that dumb Sacred gauntlet clone that looked like someone took a completely unrelated project and slapped the name on it at the day before release.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

It doesn't even look like a bad game, per se, but it's hard to tell where it even begins to resemble the old ones.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Was there ever any reason to play Disciples, other than the art?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Hey! I forgot the screaming skeletons from Daggerfall were in the intro to the original.


The 3D art like that aged so bad, but the unit art, voices, story are great and have character. DISCIPLES II loses a little bit of the character but gains in other areas. (And sheesh... enough expansions up to Gold Edition).

DISCIPLES III.... a Heroes 5 wannabe (even the wikia mentions that). Its always funny many games in a series lose something and deviate from the original. Heroes, Age of Wonders, warcraft, etc.

I was rereading the changes on Disciple 3 and the mention of nodes almost made me ponder something similar in Masters of Magic.

MOM NODES

DISCIPLES III CHANGES

There are no rodbearers in Disciples 3. Instead, there are certain spots, on the scenario map known as Guardian Nodes, where upon being reached by any hero (even the summoned ones like Living Armor), the Guardian is planted. Guardians are static characters, that acts both like Rod and a garrison, defending the nodes, and increasing the size of owner's domain. They also have three levels- Basic, Medium, and Strong, and can house any number of units (but no heroes). The Guardians gain experience not only by fighting off enemies, but also receives some after each turn.

I liked the rod-bearers. Its sad they thought they had to mimic Heroes 5 though.

So, Disciples 4..... I'll watch from the sideline much like I did with 3.

If you don't go TLDR, then reading the lore of the first game has some interesting points. Bethrezen, wasn't initially evil but his attendants to the world sure were fucking assholes. Odd, they didn't get the blame.

 

[d1r]

As a King's Bounty fan, and as someone who has never played Disciples, I'd say this looks pretty great.

 

[Malamert]

How dare you?

 

[MrBuzzKill]

Was there ever any reason to play Disciples, other than the art?

I actually quite liked the story and the way it evolved from 1 to 2. The way each race's campaign intertwined and formed a part of a whole narrative.
Also the godlike music:

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Eight minutes of gameplay and dev commentary:



Don't ask me if it's interesting. No idea, I have yet to watch it.

 

[Glop_dweller]

This game is copying some aspects of Druidstone.
(That's not terrible per se, but it's rather obvious.)

Also [a peeve], the gameplay shows that the overland camera follows centered on the PC, rather than being independent and free moving around the overland map.

As a King's Bounty fan, and as someone who has never played Disciples, I'd say this looks pretty great.

All of them are like playing with interactive oil paintings; beautiful (to the point of excessive) art.

The earlier games were more complex than the D3+ games; yet they had —seemingly— simpler combat, at first glance. The player leads the racial nation, and is of a certain character class; Warrior, Mage, or Thief. This choice had a strong effect upon gameplay; ( class related advantage(s) in the UI, or benefits for the units in the field).

The player had the option to run as many heroes (of any class) as they could afford to outfit and maintain; these servant heroes would trigger the narrative events as they encountered them. Conversely D3+ mainly follows a single hero's quest.

In D1&2 the strategy & tactical play was also on the overland map; it's present, but not so much in D3+ [IIRC].

 

[Gargaune]

Eight minutes of gameplay and dev commentary:



Don't ask me if it's interesting. No idea, I have yet to watch it.

I just have and lo and behold, it's not Baldur's Gate Disciples.

I gotta say, though, I'm genuinely impressed with the license holder's ability to run this property into the ground. They released Disciples 3 a whooping three times, Renaissance, Resurrection and Reincarnation, and they never got anything more than some begrudging resignation from longtime fans. Now they're making a new one and rather than backtrack towards the hit everyone still remembers after two decades, Disciples 2, they're moving even farther from it. I know everyone's chasing the RPG bucks these days, but D2 was already a perfectly suitable platform to develop a hybrid on.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

is there anything more uninspired in RPGs than talents that provide a tiny +%n increase per rank?

 

[Blaine]

The art direction is closer to World of Warcraft than to Disciples II, not that that's surprising in this day and age.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The art direction is closer to World of Warcraft than to Disciples II, not that that's surprising in this day and age.

It'd require quite the talent to implement that art style in 3d too, I should think.

 

[Blaine]

The art direction is closer to World of Warcraft than to Disciples II, not that that's surprising in this day and age.

It'd require quite the talent to implement that art style in 3d too, I should think.

Disciples II had 3D models, so I take it your point is that such talent would be hard to find?

It seems to me that the general design philosophy of the models, the overall color palette, and the UI design are as pertinent to the "feel" of Disciples II than sheer artistry.

I've been observing this phenomenon for approximately the last twelve years now—wherein a generally stark, desaturated, low fantasy/gothic art direction from earlier iterations of a franchise is discarded in favor of a rounded-edged, oversaturated, high fantasy/cartoony alternative. The lines are not always clear and this isn't a perfect explanation, but that's the essence of it.