Brian Fargo announced inXile's next RPG project this weekend at PAX South: The Bard's Tale IV! <...>
"This project has always been really personal to me," Fargo told IGN. "It was a game that put both me and Interplay on the map, back in the day. And it's also the franchise that launched inXile."
InXile Entertainment is planning a Kickstarter for The Bard's Tale IV. Details about the game are still light, but Fargo did say the team will be pulling from the original as far as overarching ideas go. From a story perspective, players will be returning to Skara Brae, where it all began. But on the gameplay side of things, Fargo is planning a deviation.
"Traditional turn-based combat," as Fargo calls it, bases turns on varying factors, creating battles in which different characters attacked at different times, often alternating between opposing sides. But in The Bard's Tale IV, teams attack all at once. This increases the pace of the combat, and allows for a different set of tactics than the traditional system might allow.
"There will be plenty of combat diversity and depth," Fargo said. "You look at something like Hearthstone, for example. It's sort of that going back-and-forth process, and you see the complexity and detail and strategy and nuance that can happen. It's really an amazing system. I love those modern influences. I took a lot away from that, and see things we need to do with our combat system."
Of course for the immediate future our focus continues to be on Torment: Tides of Numenera and we're not done updating Wasteland 2 yet either. But we're excited to unveil this project and will continue to talk about it for a later crowdfunding to combine with our own funding.
Few Quick Questions:
Is this game will be closer to 2009 Bard's Tale or to "classic" ones?
Brian: more like the classics.
Brian: As much as I enjoyed our little Bard's Tale comedy romp, Bard's Tale IV is a proper sequel of the trilogy.
Can you tell us anything about the combat?
Brian: We are still designing the combat system for Bard's Tale but be assured it will be no real time click fest. Details much later...
Will it come to consoles?
Brian: Too early to say....but possible. We focus 100% of energies on PC while in development.