Game News The Banner Saga 2 officially announced

[Infinitron]

Tags: Stoic Studio; The Banner Saga 2

We've always known that Stoic Studio's The Banner Saga, released back in the January of Incline, was meant to be merely the first chapter in a trilogy. Many people believed this meant that the game would be episodic, but as the months passed by with no second episode in sight, it became clear that Stoic had bigger plans. Yesterday at The Video Game Awards, they finally officially announced The Banner Saga 2, a full-blown sequel. Here's the trailer:

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The folks at Stoic must be very busy, since they haven't yet updated their site or even uploaded the trailer to their own YouTube channel, but I guess we'll learn more next week. For now, you can enjoy the pretty animation.

 

[garren]

First one was meh.

 

[Metro]

Will buy at 75% off when the trilogy is complete.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Someone actually played the first one?

 

[Infinitron]

Someone actually played the first one?

Well, let's see...all-time peaks...

Blackguards: http://steamcharts.com/app/249650
Banner Saga: http://steamcharts.com/app/237990

Looks like they did!

I think the game may have been buried on the Codex due to its thread somehow finding its way to Strategy Gaming, and it didn't help that Andhaira, who is on many people's ignore lists, was the OP for a time. These issues have since been addressed.

 

[SCO]

Banner Saga is much like a visual novel with combat, with just a bit of illusion of choice, but it's worth playing if you don't demand *free movement extravaganza single character rpgs*. It reminded me of a slightly more retarded lone wolf gamebook. Ideally a continuing series would play very much like the gamebook player seventh sense for that series, that has persistent inventory, stats and enforces minor decisions from previous books.

It remains to be seen if they will deliver on anything interesting relating to the decisions on the old game (much like bioware is always saying they do). They have the perfect opening for two different quests on the ending of the first game but ehhh, i will believe it when i see it.

 

[mindx2]

Do the ones who bought through the KS still get these episodes free?

 

[aeternalis]

Banner Saga is much like a visual novel with combat, with just a bit of illusion of choice, but it's worth playing if you don't demand *free movement extravaganza single character rpgs*. It reminded me of a slightly more retarded lone wolf gamebook.

It remains to be seen if they will deliver on anything interesting relating to the decisions on the old game (much like bioware is always saying they do). They have the perfect opening for two different quests on the ending of the first game but ehhh, i will believe it when i see it.

Yeah, they certainly had consequence in the first game, but "illusion of choice" describes it well. You can see where they wanted to be like KODP with their choices but generally fell far short of what makes that game's decision points and inductive reasoning so brilliant. I've read the dev's thoughts on a certain other forum and I think he comprehends where it went wrong.

That being said, the weaknesses of episode 1 were well-documented; I enjoyed it for what it was and am cautiously optimistic for the second part.

(And I actually didn't mind the combat system. But it needs a lot more variety in tactical situations and battle maps.)

 

[Infinitron]

Do the ones who bought through the KS still get these episodes free?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stoic/the-banner-saga/description

We've just recently decided to give the full 3-part game away to anyone who donates (or has already donated) $50 or more to the campaign. It's our thanks for making this campaign such an amazing success!

 

[mindx2]

Do the ones who bought through the KS still get these episodes free?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stoic/the-banner-saga/description

We've just recently decided to give the full 3-part game away to anyone who donates (or has already donated) $50 or more to the campaign. It's our thanks for making this campaign such an amazing success!

I knew that but didn't know if they reconsidered considering this is now a... sequel(?) instead of another episode. I rely on you, the mighty seeker of all things in gaming news (and brofists), to know of any announcement I may have missed.

 

[Infinitron]

Do the ones who bought through the KS still get these episodes free?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stoic/the-banner-saga/description

We've just recently decided to give the full 3-part game away to anyone who donates (or has already donated) $50 or more to the campaign. It's our thanks for making this campaign such an amazing success!

I knew that but didn't know if they reconsidered considering this is now a... sequel(?) instead of another episode. I rely on you, the mighty seeker of all things in gaming news (and brofists), to know of any announcement I may have missed.

They've barely announced anything about this sequel, but I strongly doubt they would go back on their promise. That's PR suicide.

 

[aeternalis]

They've barely announced anything about this sequel, but I strongly doubt they would go back on their promise. That's PR suicide.

Especially after the episode where King/Candy Crush Saga pursued legal action for them having "Saga" in their game's name and they got free PR for being a poor little indie harassed by big money machine.

 

[SCO]

It's more likely that instead of continuing the 'saga' from this group of refugees they will simply do another one. Then try to tie in the narrative at the end episode, by juggling the regions that the 'tribes' walk through. That would be ultra lame, but it's practical.

 

[SirSingAlot]

i fucking hope they will make this a free add on for those that dumped money into part one.

part one was so freaking short, its actually insulting. (get the fuck off with replayability due to "ur choices affecting the story")
also they better tweak combat, because the system was retarded. (to those that dont know: u take turns, than CPU does, regardless of how many units you have on the battlefield, which results into strange and unintuitive startegies u have to use)

 

[Starwars]

I thought the combat was fun. It's just that it was so ungrounded in, well... what would be called "real strategies" that it felt dumb, weird and uninituitive. The whole "keeping the enemies alive" thing kinda goes against a lot of the "realism" the game otherwise is kinda aiming for.
But those very odd decisions aside, the actual combat was pretty fun for me. That weirdness kinda sets it apart from other combat systems as well.

I'm definitely looking forward to the second one. I have a lot of complaints about the first game but for me it had that special something that kept me glued to the screen. Really enjoyed it overall.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I really enjoyed the first one, primarily due to its apocalyptic atmosphere. The world goes comepletely to shit and there is nothing that you can do about it but run - all told with pretty animations and beautiful music. I also enjoyed a lot of the morally grey choices you could make, it often really felt like making a hard decision as the leader of a group. I liked how you did not have a clear cut hero main character but rather a bunch of different heroes and changing povs that gave different perspectives. The game lenght was disappointing and it really felt as if they just did run out money and had to break of the game right in the middle but I had a great time while it lasted. Looking forward to part 2.

 

[set]

The combat is both fun and retarded because of how the systems were designed. My biggest dislike is the huge negative feedback loop: Strong units get stronger by killing shit, weak units get weaker by being unable to kill shit. Normalize XP distribution or you just have 2 super strong doods and a bunch of peons surrounding them.

The first game would have just been better as an animated movie.

 

[taxalot]

I buy complete games. Call me when Banner Saga 3 is out and there's a complete review.

 

[Grotesque]

Especially after the episode where King/Candy Crush Saga pursued legal action for them having "Saga" in their game's name and they got free PR for being a poor little indie harassed by big money machine.

get the fuck out.

 

[Infinitron]

Especially after the episode where King/Candy Crush Saga pursued legal action for them having "Saga" in their game's name and they got free PR for being a poor little indie harassed by big money machine.

get the fuck out.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...as-the-words-candy-or-saga-in-its-name.89295/

 

[Copper]

There is a negative feedback loop - if you're retarded enough to just kill everyone with Hakon who already hit the level cap 5 fights ago, instead of using him to cripple foes and let lower strength units get their kills - tactics, amirite? Also I found it's rarely a good idea to leave too many Dredge alive at low Strength - they can still knock 2-3 points of armour off per hit, with no defense, which can cripple even the best defender in no time.

 

[SirSingAlot]

There is a negative feedback loop - if you're retarded enough to just kill everyone with Hakon who already hit the level cap 5 fights ago, instead of using him to cripple foes and let lower strength units get their kills - tactics, amirite? Also I found it's rarely a good idea to leave too many Dredge alive at low Strength - they can still knock 2-3 points of armour off per hit, with no defense, which can cripple even the best defender in no time.

the fact that the game forces you to use such retarded startegies is bullocks.
exp system is bad, period.
oh, and a 2 man party gets as many turns as a 6 man party? not a smart implementation neither.

 

[toro]

The combat system was pretty retarded or let's say mediocre at best.

The end-boss story didn't make much sense and the final battle was completely unbalanced.

Other than this, the game was actually good. The story evolution and the atmosphere are simply charming.

To cut it short, I'm looking forward to part 2. Episode 2. Whatever.

 

[SCO]

I have to confess i couldn't care less that a useful strategy was not 'realistic'. If you're a gamer you do what you have to do, and have fun doing it, otherwise you'll lose a lot of fun refusing to play stuff for dumb reasons (where would i be if i refused to play, say, gungnir, because it has a similar unfair unbalance between the enemy team nº of turns versus the player nº of turns - which only makes the game funner mind you).

If you're bitching that a game tried something new that confused you (and thus is interesting), you're failing.

 

[Turok]

The combat was meh, i stop playing it because of the combat. One of those games i will finish seeing then on youtube videos.