Hey, remember how Techland is working on a new fantasy RPG? No? Me neither! Probably because it was announced literally seven years ago (opens in new tab) at the same time as Dying Light 2 (opens in new tab), which got much more attention both from audiences and Techland itself. But I guess the company is ready to focus on the game it’s had in the oven for the last near-decade.
In a tweet posted yesterday, Techland gave us a few precious crumbs of info about just what the heck this RPG is going to be. I’m gonna level with you, folks, it ain’t much, but we do at least know that Techland is aiming for a “story-focused” game set in an “exotic open world,” which we got a glimpse of in a piece of art shared alongside the post.
We never stop improving!Our newest game is set to be a narrative-driven #fantasy epic with an exotic open world ready to be explored. We strive to create a compelling story-focused #AAA title that combines and refines the best aspects of gameplay that Techland is known for. pic.twitter.com/SuJ8vVWbrIMarch 16, 2023
So we learned that Techland is on the right track, because it’s clearly internalised Shenanigansen’s first rule of good worldbuilding (opens in new tab): making the moon fucked up. It’s worked wonders for The Elder Scrolls (which has an incredibly cool secret third moon (opens in new tab) rumoured to be the corpse of the dead god Lorkhaj), so I can only imagine the shattered planetoid lingering in the sky of Techland’s concept art will do good work for that studio, too.
The tweet says that the unnamed game will combine and refine the “best aspects of gameplay that Techland is known for”. To me, that sounds like we can expect an agile, first-person adventure in the mould of Dying Light—especially since we can clearly see a little guy up to some arboreal parkour in the image—but I stress that’s just my speculation. In mid-2022, Techland’s CEO said (opens in new tab) it was making a “brand new IP that is vastly different from what we have been doing for the past several years,” which doesn’t exactly jibe with the wording of the tweet.
Techland had already been working on this game for a year before it was announced in 2016, so it’s had a lot of time to figure out what the heck it’s gonna be. Back around the announcement, it said it was hoping to implement both co-op and single-player gameplay. But a lot of time has passed since then: more than enough for the project to undergo a radical overhaul several times over. Techland didn’t say when we could expect to hear more, so I’ll meet you back here in 2030.
