If you’re of an age where you fondly remember SSI’s Gold Box series of RPGs, you might want to pay attention to Seven Dragon Saga.
Seven Dragon Saga is a forthcoming RPG being developed by Tactical Simulations Interactive (TSI), a studio formed by alumni from Strategic Simulations Interactive (SSI). SSI developed in-depth RPGs like Curse of the Azure Bonds, Pool of Radiance, and Dark Queen of Krynn, and TSI wants to recreate that sort of game but with modern tech.
Seven Dragon Saga is set in a “high-powered fantasy universe”, centred around the Empire of the Seven Dragons. Your characters will be “touched by the winds of chaos”, embarking on a quest that will eventually determine the fate of the empire itself. “It is the Emperor’s role to proclaim. It is the Dragons’ role to command. It is the role of the Touched to act, without hesitation and without regret,” apparently.
Seven Dragon Saga is based on an original pen-and-paper roleplaying system designed by SSI alumni Keith Brors and David Shelley. You’ll have a full player-created party under your control from the start (all of whom are apparently effective heroes, rather than newbies barely capable of taking on rats) and you’ll take on foes in turn-based tactical combat featuring terrain modifiers and destructible terrain. And yes, choices you make will matter: you’ll have to side with groups and factions, making social and political choices and directly influencing the world around you. Or you can ignore all of that and just go for fame and glory, but just because you aren’t paying attention to the consequences doesn’t mean there won’t be any.
All of which sounds pretty great to me. It’ll be interesting to see just how well they manage to mesh the old-school Gold Box RPG sensibilities with more modern conventions; the Gold Box games tended towards being combat-heavy dungeon-crawls, but Seven Dragon Saga sounds a little bit different. It’s being built in Unity3D (like Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2) and we’re promised more details soon, so hopefully we’ll hear more before too long.
You can see some concept art below, showing a couple of locations as well as an Elf Wizard, a Kralik Pitfighter, and a Dwarf Knight.
