Game News Blackguards 2 Announced

[Infinitron]

Tags: Blackguards 2; Daedalic Entertainment

We just received this press release from Daedalic. That's right, it's Blackguards 2!

Blackguards 2: Daedalic announces sequel to its SRPG success

Hamburg, June 10th, 2014. Not much time has passed, but a lot has happened in the time between the events of the turn-based RPG-hit Blackguards and its sequel Blackguards 2, which is officially announced today by Daedalic Entertainment and EuroVideo: Blackguards 2 is set only few years after the story of the first game, but will bring along many changes – for the well-known characters as well as for the players.

Blackguards 2 will stay an SRPG focussing on turn-based, strategic battles with a group of scoundrels as anti-heroes. Some of the best-known Blackguards from the first game will be part of the team again – unfortunately, their lives didn’t go very well since then. Dwarf Naurim, for example, has rest on his fame as a successful gladiator and defeater of the Nine Hordes. He used his popularity for shady businesses and excessive parties and got quite potbellied – not a very good condition for battles, and so he hung up his axe and ditched his old gang, as long as they wouldn't yield any profit.

Wizard Zurbaran was even less lucky: His mistress could track down the former slave, who was able to escape his servitude. She shackled, mortified and sold him for one symbolic copper piece at the slave market.

Takate, on the other hand, is back among the forest people and arranges his own gladiatorial games, letting humans fight for their destiny, just as he was forced to. He believes that there are no challenges left, after he has defeated the Nine Hordes, and gets bored with sending others to their death.

Nevertheless, the fame of the defeater of the Nine Hordes seems to be everlasting – at least for the three survivors, as all others have found their end. Cassia, main protagonist of Blackguards 2, is looking for them: Cassia’s only goal is to rule from the Shark Throne at all costs, even if it’s only for one day. In the Blackguards she sees the fighters and the power she needs for her plans, even if they are a shadow of their former glory: Naurim became fat and lazy, but also more cunning; Zurbaran lost his self-confidence and Takate seems to have lost his killer instinct.

Together with Cassia the three remaining Blackguards will be the main characters of Blackguards 2. In many quests the group will travel through South Aventuria to fulfill Cassias dream.

Blackguards 2 will again be based on the RPG rulebook of The Dark Eye, but it will come along with some revisions, optimisations and simplifications. The gameplay will focus on turn-based battles once more – this time the players have to conquer Cassia’s lands and defend them against intruders when the need arises. As in a fraction-based game the enemies can recapture the territories from the Blackguards.

If not in a battle, players take care of a lot of quests and the development of their characters. As common in RPGs, the quests will offer optional and alternative plotlines.

Furthermore, Blackguards 2 will have new weapons, armor, enemies and stamina as additional battle resource.

On top of that, Blackguards 2 will involve mechanics that have been requested by players of the first game, like improved line of sight, cover and formation.

Blackguards 2 is planned to be released in early 2015.
​

 

[Crooked Bee]

Fuck yeah!

 

[Infinitron]

Cassia? Does that mean there's a "canon" main character now with a predetermined gender?

 

[evdk]

Would it really matter?

Also: we now get press releases directly? Prestigious indeed.

 

[Infinitron]

Another thing that's confusing is that it's not clear whether you're fighting for Cassia or against her. Maybe you can choose? I assume "fraction-based game" is a typo.

 

[Scroo]

To quote myself from the other thread:



This is really great news!

But:

Blackguards 2 will again be based on the RPG rulebook of The Dark Eye, but it will come along with some revisions, optimisations and simplifications.

I only hope the character development system will stay rather complex and as open as it was in the first game since this, along with the combat system of course, was the best part of the game.

 

[Western]

Awesome! Just when Io-Daedalic thought he'd escaped as well, he might even reach the one year mark to be able to see the majesty of GD.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Also: we now get press releases directly? Prestigious indeed.

Perhaps the Watch are kind enough to forward copies of theirs...

 

[Kem0sabe]

scoundrels as anti-heroes

They were anything but in the first game. These were your traditional run of the mill heroes out to save others instead of the classical "save your own neck anti-hero". That was one of the biggest disappointments of the first game, they set the characters up in the PR as something entirely different than what they ended up being.

Then again, most people played this for the good combat and interesting battle maps, not the mediocre story.

 

[abnaxus]

Womyn protagonist only?

Also where is Aurelia?

 

[Infinitron]

We've been getting press releases for a while now, actually.

They were anything but in the first game. These were your traditional run of the mill heroes out to save others

Eh, they weren't assholes, but they were almost always self-interested.

 

[Loriac]

 

[Kem0sabe]

We've been getting press releases for a while now, actually.

They were anything but in the first game. These were your traditional run of the mill heroes out to save others

Eh, they weren't assholes, but they were almost always self-interested.

More like self-sacrificing than self-interested.

 

[Infinitron]

I see, so to you playing the main characters of Blackguards, who were a pair of lazy young aristocrats, a violent arsonist dwarf, a lecherous mage on the run, and a deadly tribal from the jungle, was just like playing a Lawful Good party in Baldur's Gate with a paladin, gotcha

 

[Kz3r0]

Another thing that's confusing is that it's not clear whether you're fighting for Cassia or against her. Maybe you can choose? I assume "fraction-based game" is a typo.

Extracting their root to multiplicate their exponential I guess.

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Dieithrio]

Already a sequel? But who cares, improve less successful aspects of the first and bring it to me.

:kwafuckyeah:

 

[Kem0sabe]

I see, so to you playing the main characters of Blackguards, who were a pair of lazy young aristocrats, a violent arsonist dwarf, a lecherous mage on the run, and a deadly tribal from the jungle, was just like playing a Lawful Good party with Keldorn in BG2, gotcha

Did you actually played the game to the ending and read their dialogues? If thats not "heroes saving the world" material, then i dont know what is. Very different from what Daedalic let on from the start of their PR campaign for the first game. I can be a much more destructive asshole in the first 10 minutes of Age of Decadence than the entirety of Blackguards.

 

[Cyberarmy]

 

[Infinitron]

Did you actually played the game to the ending and read their dialogues? If thats not "heroes saving the world" material, then i dont know what is. Very different from what Daedalic let on from the start of their PR campaign for the first game. I can be a much more destructive asshole in the first 10 minutes of Age of Decadence than the entirety of Blackguards.

I said they weren't assholes, didn't I? If you were expecting to be able to be a genuinely evil person, or for there to be "evil quests" like in MotB or something like that, then I can see why you might be disappointed.

I don't remember any PR campaign promising that, though. To me, the title "Blackguards" implied that they were "scoundrels" - think Han Solo, not Darth Vader. Regardless of the evil D&D prestige class of the same name.

 

[jdinatale]

I think the biggest implication is that Blackguards 2 sold well enough to warrant a sequel, proving there is still a market for hardcore CRPG's.

Now we await Might & Magic XI

 

[Shannow]

I assume "fraction-based game" is a typo.

Yes and no. The word German "Fraktion" means essentially the same as the English "faction". I've stumbled over this once or twice myself.

Not having played Blackguards (was waiting to see if there was more DLC/an expansion coming so that I could play it all in one bundle - no real excuses left with this press release): An anti-hero is usually forced into heroics to save himself. He doesn't put himself in danger just because he thinks it's the right thing to do. So basically a realistical person.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Did you actually played the game to the ending and read their dialogues? If thats not "heroes saving the world" material, then i dont know what is. Very different from what Daedalic let on from the start of their PR campaign for the first game. I can be a much more destructive asshole in the first 10 minutes of Age of Decadence than the entirety of Blackguards.

I said they weren't assholes, didn't I? If you were expecting to be able to be a genuinely evil person, or for there to be "evil quests" like in MotB or something like that, then I can see why you might be disappointed.

I don't remember any PR campaign promising that, though. To me, the title "Blackguards" implied that they were "scoundrels" - think Han Solo, not Darth Vader. Regardless of the evil D&D prestige class of the same name.

Fair enough.

 

[Morality Games]

Would it really matter?

Also: we now get press releases directly? Prestigious indeed.

Stepping away from PCs is rarely a good move in contemporary RPGs; it would probably suit the overall style of Blackguards better though, no doubt about that.

 

[evdk]

Would it really matter?

Also: we now get press releases directly? Prestigious indeed.

Stepping away from PCs is rarely a good move in contemporary RPGs; it would probably suit the overall style of Blackguards better though, no doubt about that.

It would just be one more adventure game element more present in the game and the original was already full of them, what with the puzzle based encounter design and all.