Microsoft (also) buys inXile Entertainment

Hot on the heels of the news that Microsoft has bought CRPG masterminds Obsidian Entertainment, it has also been confirmed that Microsoft has acquired fellow RPG studio inXile. Unlike Obsidian's acquisition, which was widely anticipated, inXile's is a surprise.

inXile Entertainment was founded in 2002 by Bryan Fargo shortly after he quit the company he founded back in the early 1980s, Interplay, after it fell into financial mismanagement involving outside investors. The company survived its first decade by making 3D console ports and then games for mobile devices.

In 2012 the company launched a crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter for a new RPG, Wasteland 2 (a sequel to the classic Electronic Arts RPG Wasteland, which in turn had inspired the original Fallout). Released in 2014, Wasteland 2 was a significant sales and critical success. The company followed this up with Torment: Tides of Numenera (2017), a "spiritual successor" to the classic Interplay CRPG Planescape: Torment. Despite strong reviews, Torment sold poorly.

inXile's most recent game, The Bard's Tale IV (2018), attracted mixed critical notices and has also apparently not sold well. This pattern of low sales for their games and the reduced income from crowdfunding - although it should be noted that both Obsidian and inXile moving from the very-well-known Kickstarter platform to the obscure Fig system would not have helped - has likely made it necessary to consider selling the company.

inXile have almost completed work on Wasteland 3, which is due for release in 2019 and will now presumably be a Microsoft-branded game.

Intriguingly, both Obsidian and inXile started as Interplay and unusually (given the passage of 20 years) many of the same people work at both companies, raising the interesting prospect of them perhaps being merged to work on future projects, effectively recreating the "good old days" of Interplay in the 1990s.

TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA released

inXile Studios have released their long, long-gestating CRPG, Torment: Tides of Numenera.

A "spiritual" successor to the greatest CRPG ever made, Planescape: Torment (1999), Tides of Numenera is set in Monte Cook's Dying Earth/Book of the New Sun-inspired pen-and-paper RPG setting, Earth a billion years in the future where technology and magic have become indistinguishable. Colin McComb, one of the creative geniuses behind the Planescape D&D setting and a writer on Planescape: Torment, is one of the lead designers on the new game. Chris Avellone, the creative lead of Planescape: Torment, also contributed quests and prose to the new game, as has bestselling fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss.

So far Torment: Tides of Numenera has wracked up some excellent reviews. It is available now on PC, X-Box One and PlayStation 4.

TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA story trailer released

inXile Studios have released the story trailer for their roleplaying game Torment: Tides of Numenera. This is the "spiritual successor" to the classic Black Isle CRPG Planescape: Torment, set instead in Monte Cook's Numenera roleplaying setting.

A billion years into the future, a man strives to escape death by transferring his consciousness from body to body. However, each time he leaves a body, a new consciousness is born within. At first he embraces these entities as his "children" but as time passes he becomes colder and more remote, more willing to cast off these offspring. Until he transfers to his last body, and a new being is born...you.

Colin McComb, who co-designed and developed both the Planescape roleplaying game and Planescape: Torment itself, is the project lead on the game. Chris Avellone (CRPG demigod and lead developer of Planescape: Torment back in the day) has contributed quests and characters to the game, as has fantasy novelist Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind).

Torment: Tides of Numenera will be released on 28 February.

TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA gets a release date

inXile Studios have confirmed that, after many delays, their crowdfunded computer roleplaying game Torment: Tides of Numenera will be released on 28 February 2017.

Described as a "spiritual successor" to the classic 1999 Black Isle RPG Planescape: Torment, Tides of Numenera is set a billion years in the future on (or near) a post-human Earth inhabited by the ruins of eight great civilisations. Heavily inspired by Jack Vance's The Dying Earth and Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, this is a deep, reactive CRPG which will encourage dialogue and puzzle-solving as well as violence as a way of solving problems.

The game is primarily written by Colin McComb, who wrote a lot of Planescape: Torment as well numerous Planescape sourcebooks back when it was a Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting. George Ziets (Neverwinter Nights II, Fallout: New Vegas) is another lead writer. Chris Avellone, the project lead on Planescape: Torment, has also contributed a couple of quests and characters, as has Patrick Rothfuss, the writer of The Name of the Wind.

This is one of the more promising CRPGs in development at the moment, and it'll be interested to see if the lengthy gestation period (the game will launch four years after its Kickstarter campaign started, which is a long time for an isometrically-viewed CRPG) will result in an appropriately impressive game.

TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA delayed until 2017

inXile Entertainment have confirmed that their CRPG Torment: Tides of Numenera, a spiritual successor to the classic 1999 game Planescape: Torment, has been delayed until early 2017.

The game is currently in beta and a preview is currently available to play for backers, but inXile say that bringing the game up to release standard and completing localisation for its many hundreds of thousands of words of dialogue will take slightly longer than they had been planning for their late 2016 release.

Torment: Tides of Numenera is set in the Dying Earth-esque SF/fantasy mashup world of Monte Cook's pen-and-paper roleplaying system. The game will feature combat and intrigue, but is more interested in exploring story, character and themes, and will proritise wits, roleplaying and dialogue over violence. The game's writers include CRPG veteran Chris Avellone (Fallout 2 and New Vegas, Mask of the Betrayer, Planescape: Torment) and novelist Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man's Fear).

TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA delayed until 2016

Surprising no-one, inXile's new computer RPG has been delayed until some time in 2016. Torment: Tides of Numenera is a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, arguably the greatest CRPG of all time, and is set in the Numenera roleplaying setting created by Monte Cook.

The delay was unsurprising given the crowded late 2015 release schedule and the fact that the game has only recently started seeing more substantive previews and trailers being released (see above, focusing on the game's "Crisis" encounter system).

Torment: Tides of Numenera will also be of interesting to epic fantasy fans, featuring as it does some quests and characters written by Kingkiller Chronicle author Patrick Rothfuss, as well as material from Chris Avellone (of Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Planescape: Torment and Mask of the Betrayer fame).

Patrick Rothfuss's books to be adapted into many things

Patrick Rothfuss has struck a deal with Lionsgate over his Kingkiller Chronicles books, The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man's Fear and the forthcoming Doors of Stone. The deal will involve feature films, a TV series and a video game.

The exact details of the deal remain to be hammered out, but will include both films and a TV series that will adapt the books, as well as potentially telling new stories in the world of Termerant. Robert Lawrence, who worked on Clueless, Rock Star and The Last Castle, will executive produce the project.

The level of Rothfuss's involvement also remains to be seen. Rothfuss is finishing off The Doors of Stone for (hopefully) a 2016 release, so will be free of any immediate, announced obligations in the near future. Rothfuss also picked up some recent video game writing experience when he contributed characters, quests and dialogue to inXile's forthcoming Torment: Tides of Numenera.

It's unlikely we will see anything on screen before (at the earliest) late 2017/early 2018, but the level of commitment from Lionsgate is seriously impressive.

The news also confirms that the Kingkiller books have sold just over 10 million copies, making it easily the most successful debut epic fantasy series of the past decade.

First gameplay footage from TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA

inXile have released the first gameplay video for Torment: Tides of Numenera. This is their spiritual sequel to the 1999 CPRG Planescape: Torment, widely regarded as one of the greatest CRPGs ever made.

Tides of Numenera takes place on Earth a billion years in the future, after multiple civilisations have risen and fallen and magic and science have become entwined. Several of the creators of Planescape: Torment are working on the game and inXile are gearing up for full production as soon as they release their Kickstarted post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland 2. Which is tomorrow, which is quite handy. inXile have received the assistance of Obsidian Entertainment in making the game, who loaned both tech and some writers (including Planescape: Torment's head writer, Chris Avellone) to the project. Obsidian are preparing their own old-school CRPG Pillars of Eternity for release in the next few weeks.

It may also be of interest to literature fantasy fans that Patrick Rothfuss is contributing some writing and a character to the game as well.

This video footage is pre-alpha, so a lot can change before Tides of Numenera's final release, which is anticipated in late 2015.

Chris Avellone on RPG design, PROJECT ETERNITY and too many great games to count

At the Rezzed gaming conference this weekened, Obsidian developer Chris Avellone did a presentation on CRPG design. You can check it out here.

Avellone has a CV that is interesting. At Black Isle back in the day he was the project lead on Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment (probably the greatest Western CRPG of all time) as well as working on Icewind Dale and its sequel. At Obsidian he was the lead designer on Knights of the Old Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues and Alpha Protocol. He also worked on Neverwinter Nights II and its expansion Mask of the Betrayer as well as the main game of Fallout: New Vegas. He has also been hired out to inXile to assist on the upcoming Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera. Avellone is a noted proponent of player choice and including more complex thematic, and philosophical elements than is normally found in games, not to mention more complex characterisation.

Some of those things are discussed in the interview, along with progress on Project: Eternity, some interesting info on how they made Planescape: Torment and Fallout: New Vegas, and on the merits of Kickstarter as a business model. He also namechecks Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rothfuss in a discussion of magic systems, though he doesn't mentioned Obsidian's planned Wheel of Time CRPG (which is still on hold until Red Eagle raise the funding for it).

TORMENT update: Rothfuss and Avellone in

The Kickstarter for Torment: Tides of Numenera is roughly halfway done, with 14 days to go before the end of the appeal. However, the game is already funded: having asked for $900,000, inXile Studios have actually received $2.9 million. The game is now deep into what Kickstarter calls, 'stretch goals', that is additional incentives for people to keep funding in the form of added content to the game.

First up, if the game hits $3.25 million then the writing team will be expanded to include bestselling fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man's Fear). Rothfuss will be adding about 10,000 words of content to the game in the form of dialogue and characters. He won't be doing any more because of his commitments to finishing off The Doors of Stone, the third and concluding volume of The Kingkiller Chronicle.

Much more enticing (to this blogger, anyway) is that at $3.5 million, inXile will add Chris Avellone to the writing time. Avellone was the primary writer and designer of the original Planescape: Torment (to which Numenera is the spiritual successor), as well as Fallout 2, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer and the forthcoming Project: Eternity. He also worked on Icewind Dale and its sequel; Fallout: New Vegas (including leading the design of several of its DLC episodes); and Alpha Protocol. He has also done some writing for inXile's previous Kickstarter game project, Wasteland 2. He is often cited as the finest writer of Western CRPGs. Exactly why Avellone still hasn't written a novel, I don't know, as I suspect it would be awesome. Avellone will be creating a new NPC character for the game and writing their dialogue, but will also be serving as an editor and a fresh pair of eyes on the work of the rest of the team as well.

With still two weeks to go, I suspect this Kickstarter will breeze past both targets and probably end up somewhere on the other side of $4 million when all is said and done. It's shaping up to be a very interesting game.

Torment: Tides of Numenera now on Kickstarter

InXile Entertainment have launched their Kickstarter campaign for their roleplaying game, Torment: Tides of Numenera.

This game is a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, the 1999 PC game which is widely regarded as the best (and certainly the best-written) computer RPG ever made. Eschewing traditional fantasy conventions (no elves, no dwarves, precious few action sequences), the game delved deeply into themes of identity, responsibility, consequence and if people can every truly change themselves. It sold modestly but has attracted critical acclaim like no other RPG in history.

Since inXile do not have the rights to the Planescape setting, they are instead setting this game in a different universe altogether. The setting is Numenera, a pen-and-paper setting conceived by Monte Cook, one of the chief designers on the 3rd Edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game. The setting is Earth, approximately one billion years in the future. Our world has been rendered almost unrecognisable over that time, having gone through technology-driven utopian periods and multiple catastrophes. The planet is littered with the remnants of ultra-advanced technology that no-one understands any more (the 'numenera' of the title), not to mention alien and genetically-engineered lifeforms. There are echoes of Jack Vance's Dying Earth and Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun in the descriptions of the setting. This isn't Generic Medieval Landscape #35.

The plot of the game involves a being who is capable of skipping between different bodies, which are lifeless husks before and after he uses them. Somehow, one of the husks comes to life after he has vacated it. This creature - you - then has to search for identity and the answers to several mysteries (like, presumably, the identity of the body-jumper) along the way.

The game will be an isometric role-playing game, created using the Unity Engine. It will feature combat, but as with Planescape: Torment it will almost all be avoidable, with your character able to use dialogue or skills to resolve confrontations rather than violence.

InXile are asking for $900,000. They are certainly going to hit this, given that the total right now (just a couple of hours after launch and with a month to go) is $150,000. Amounts raised beyond that will allow for more elements to be added to the game. InXile have also guaranteed that they will pass on 5% of any excess to fund additional Kickstarter projects.

Torment: Tides of Numenera will be released in late 2014. InXile will ship Wasteland 2 at the end of this year. As they mention in the pitch video, with Wasteland 2 now in full development on the 3D and content side of things, their concept artists and writers are now free to fully commit to Torment (otherwise they'd presumably be left with nothing to do for six months or would have to be let go), explaining the timing of the appeal.