Preview Bard's Tale IV Kickstarter Update #3: Here comes the eye candy!

[Infinitron]

Tags: Bard's Tale IV; Brian Fargo; InXile Entertainment

Yesterday, inXile announced that they would be releasing some Bard's Tale IV in-engine footage this week. Soon afterwards, Brian Fargo revealed on Twitter that it would be coming out today. Well, here it is:

We finally put the finishing touches on the video for The Bard’s Tale IV In-Engine Video. The biggest question we get is how we plan to bring the genre forward, and this video should answer the question. Exploring in the world is a major part of the experience and we wanted to make use of the full screen and all that Unreal has to offer to make it as compelling as possible. Once combat starts, the combat shifts out of the first person mode. We are still debating the best ways to present combat as that is ultimately dictated by the final budget, but rest assured it will be party and turn/phase based.



The song you’re hearing was written and performed by multi-award winning Gaelic singer and multi-instrumentalist Julie Fowlis, who you may know from the two songs she contributed to Disney Pixar’s major motion picture, Brave. You may also know her from her own albums, too. Julie Fowlis grew up in a Gaelic-speaking community immersed in Scottish culture, and the songs she will contribute to The Bard’s Tale IV’s soundtrack will make the setting that much richer.

From Julie herself: "Éamon and I are delighted to have contributed music for the iconic game The Bard's Tale. For us, it has been a fascinating journey exploring and creating music, drawing from the depths of our ancient Scottish Gaelic tradition, and marrying it with the fantasy world of a renowned computer game, now 30 years old." We hope you enjoyed this first look at The Bard’s Tale IV!​

Wow. It looks like a pre-rendered cinematic, but apparently it isn't. It's got lovely Gaelic music, and a magic mouth uttering cryptic poetry. There's some bardic magic, and a little bit of puzzle solving. And at the end, there's a combat encounter with some bizarre cackling gremlin-like creatures, where the camera pulls out to a JRPG-like presentation. All in all, it certainly looks a lot more impressive than a certain other trailer we've seen recently. I guess that's the power of Unreal 4! (in before downgrade)

 

[likaq]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/377160/discussions/0/618463738386594056/

Butthurt in 1,2,3...

 

[Dehumanizer]

and a magic mouth uttering cryptic poetry.

Also known as the Bard's Tale 1 intro.

 

[Gord]

Looks nice, although I don't put much faith in such promotional material, especially if it's released 2 years before the actual game will launch.

Still, as a first hint at what they are aiming for, it's cool to see.

Edit: Also, Muhahahahaaaa!

 

[Turok]

Guaoooo Asombroso.

 

[Bladderfish]

I find the whole trailer pretty strange, not because it doesn't look good, but because I don't see anything of the The Bard's Tale in there. It looked more like a successor for Stonekeep, which is a bad, bad thing imo.

And do they want us to think that combat will be some sort of isometric or third-person thing? That would just be shit. I want tons of enemies slowly whittling my party down to nothing until all I am left with is a monk with such high AC that he can't die. I'm withdrawing my pledge if they can't approximate this scenario in 2017 or whenever the feck it launches

 

[Ivan]

I was impressed. But still I want to see the meat the mechanics have.

 

[Electryon]

This looks like the the first Kickstarter big name that actually might have some hefty system requirements. I'm kind of surprised that they are devoting those kind of resources to Bard's Tale, out of all their projects, but it certainly looks DIFFERENT, and that can't be bad.

 

[Turok]

I find the whole trailer pretty strange, not because it doesn't look good, but because I don't see anything of the The Bard's Tale in there. It looked more like a successor for Stonekeep, which is a bad, bad thing imo.

And do they want us to think that combat will be some sort of isometric or third-person thing? That would just be shit. I want tons of enemies slowly whittling my party down to nothing until all I am left with is a monk with such high AC that he can't die. I'm withdrawing my pledge if they can't approximate this scenario in 2017 or whenever the feck it launches

Thats a engine show up not a gameplay demo...

 

[Turok]

This looks like the the first Kickstarter big name that actually might have some hefty system requirements. I'm kind of surprised that they are devoting those kind of resources to Bard's Tale, out of all their projects, but it certainly looks DIFFERENT, and that can't be bad.

Is for late 2017 my friend, and with the introduction of Directx 12 old hardware will do more work and give more performance than before.

 

[Azeot]

Good for those who care about graphics, I'm happy because it is indeed impressive and will drive sales.

 

[Athelas]

This looks like the the first Kickstarter big name that actually might have some hefty system requirements.

You must not have played any of the Kickstarter RPG's developed with Unity.

 

[Electryon]

I find the whole trailer pretty strange, not because it doesn't look good, but because I don't see anything of the The Bard's Tale in there. It looked more like a successor for Stonekeep, which is a bad, bad thing imo.

You'd be surprised how popular Stonekeep still manages to be even to this day. What kills it more than anything is that it appeared in an era when developers seemed to be filling out space on CD-Rom with blurry full-motion video because they didn't yet know what to do with all the new space they had to work with. And the graphics and gameplay from that era hold up worse than any other I can think of. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than Lands of Lore 2.

 

[Electryon]

You must not have played any of the Kickstarter RPG's developed with Unity.

If you mean Pillars of Eternity, they really vastly overstate what is actually needed to run that game in most cases. But I was just referring to RPGs for the most part, point taken though.

 

[nikolokolus]

If your goal is to build enthusiasm for your game, that will drive pledges then this is about as close to a perfect demo as I could imagine them making.
1. It will suck in the graphics whores
2. It shows they actually understand the engine they are working with and know how to make it look good
3. It shows off some of their early sound design and the aural themes they want to hit - and it sounds great.
4. They didn't fuck up and show any half-baked combat or janky, slapdash shit that made it look like it was made in a rush (See Seven Dragon Saga for a counter example)

 

[Bladderfish]

I find the whole trailer pretty strange, not because it doesn't look good, but because I don't see anything of the The Bard's Tale in there. It looked more like a successor for Stonekeep, which is a bad, bad thing imo.

You'd be surprised how popular Stonekeep still manages to be even to this day. What kills it more than anything is that it appeared in an era when developers seemed to be filling out space on CD-Rom with blurry full-motion video because they didn't yet know what to do with all the new space they had to work with. And the graphics and gameplay from that era hold up worse than any other I can think of. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than Lands of Lore 2.

I didn't hate Stonekeep. It was okay. 7 out of 10. Not bad. I just consider the Bards Tale and Stonekeep to be very different games, and I'm hoping this push towards uber-high-fidelity graphics doesn't detract from what made the Bards Tale the Bards Tale.

I'm finding it hard to define what that actually is, but I'm sure anyone who has played both games will see my point.

 

[Decado]

I find the whole trailer pretty strange, not because it doesn't look good, but because I don't see anything of the The Bard's Tale in there. It looked more like a successor for Stonekeep, which is a bad, bad thing imo.

You'd be surprised how popular Stonekeep still manages to be even to this day. What kills it more than anything is that it appeared in an era when developers seemed to be filling out space on CD-Rom with blurry full-motion video because they didn't yet know what to do with all the new space they had to work with. And the graphics and gameplay from that era hold up worse than any other I can think of. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than Lands of Lore 2.

I remember seeing the preview for the game on a CD Rom that had an Interplay Lord of the Rings game on it. The LOTR game sucked, as I recall, but the trailer for Stonekeep got me super fucking pumped. And then when I got the game I was super fucking excited, except it was so fucking buggy I had to call Interplay's help line and they mailed me patch disks because they didn't have the patches online anywhere. Nuts.

 

[Dehumanizer]

What I worry about (though, as has been said here, this is just an engine demo) is that they go in the Dungeon Master / Eye of the Beholder / Legend of Grimrock direction, which is nice, but if you look beyond the surface, it's a very different genre from Wizardry / classic Bard's Tale. Dungeon Master and its clones consist of just one "expedition" and are played in real time, and the party you create (other than a few NPCs that join) is the one you finish the game with, while in Wizardry / Bard's Tale the game is turn-based and you typically descend the dungeon and go back to town several times, each time going a bit further down, and replacing party members is not only viable and fun, but often a good idea.

EDIT: I'd say Ultima Underworld is more Dungeon Masterish than Wizardryish. The SSI Gold Box games are somewhere in the middle (and I really need to play them again).

 

[Turok]

You must not have played any of the Kickstarter RPG's developed with Unity.

If you mean Pillars of Eternity, they really vastly overstate what is actually needed to run that game in most cases. But I was just referring to RPGs for the most part, point taken though.

40 FPS
APU 5800K working at 4 Ghz (4 core CPU)
R9 AMD 280 OC 3GB

Make sense?

Unity bitch

Unreal is a engine that know how to use well all the resources of your PC and with the directX 12 compatibility... this is the best moment for Fargo to use this engine.

 

[Melan]

I find the whole trailer pretty strange, not because it doesn't look good, but because I don't see anything of the The Bard's Tale in there. It looked more like a successor for Stonekeep, which is a bad, bad thing imo.

I have similar impressions. It doesn't sell itself as a Bard's Tale game (except the "bards = Celtic" association), and the way combat seems to work, I doubt it will have those hundred-enemy slaughterfests either.

The phrase that came to my mind when I was reading their Kickstarter and watching the two trailers was "empty calories".

 

[VioletShadow]

GÜAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Will this be the one blobber that turns me to the blob side? :D Btw men, Bethesda's trailer is looking even more pathetic after seeing this I bet their Fargo rage is burning brighter today! Anyway, I really liked it, the music was just

 

[mindx2]

Give Fargo his due because THAT will generate pledges regardless of what the Codex hypervenalates over.

 

[Sensuki]

Bethesda do not care, because people will buy it anyway. As I said before - look at Call of Duty, basically the same graphics since 2007.

 

[VioletShadow]

'suki is not about sales, we know Beth hates Fargo with a passion. OFC they will be over his smaller studio making a better looking game than theirs.

 

[Sensuki]

Why? They could have done better if they tried, but that's the point - they don't have to because people are going to buy it anyway.