Today is the first anniversary of the Steam release of Exiled Kingdoms, making it a great time to make an announcement about Archaelund. For those that don't know, since last October I've been working on this project.
Archaelund is set in the Exiled Kingdoms world, but is a very different and far more ambitious game. Party-based, with far more options and possibilities and featuring tactical combat, but with the same open world concept and design philosophy you loved in EK. An Early Access release is planned for Q1 2020.
DISCLAIMER: many of the 3D models in these screenshots are temporary placeholders that will be replaced with better ones before release.
Archaelund, at a glance
- Exploration as you remember it: take your party of adventurers through a vast open world. Explore as you wish, find awesome secrets and run into unexpected trouble, get involved in conflicts or just pursue your own goals and discover what lies beyond the horizon; the world is being handcrafted in great detail, just for you to discover. You can play Archaelund your own way.
- Tactical combat, but also immersive dungeon-crawling: just as the best classics did, you'll be able to explore the world of Archaelund in first-person perspective. But when combat starts, perspective seamlessly changes to top-down, and you'll issue orders to your party, placing them over a battle grid to face your enemies.
- Deadly battles with a focus on strategy: a non-inflationist, bounded system will ensure that every battle matters, and every opponent is scary. When your characters advance in levels, you'll gain new tactical options to defeat your enemies, not merely bloated and meaningless numeric stats.
- Career-based character progression: your party members will start out as thugs, ruffians, scavengers, hunters, beggars or fortune-tellers; initial Career will be chosen semi-randomly. Later on you can reach the more "heroic" Advanced Careers, leaving your ignoble origins behind... Archaelund features over 60 Careers divided in Basic, Advanced and Elite.
Story Introduction
Humanity has survived, and now has returned to its ancient Homeland: Archaelund.
Two centuries ago, a magical cataclysm brought the Horrors upon our world, and the Andorian Empire was annihilated in a matter of weeks. The few survivors fled to the savage island of Varannar, a distant Imperial Colony. For generations the Exiles endured the hardships of this new life, although they never again stood united under the old Imperial banner.
The Exiled Kingdoms were born, but the scars left by the Fall were still painfully visible in them, for the Kingdoms were mere grotesque parodies of what humanity had once been. Varsilia, the mightiest of the Kingdoms, became morbidly obsessed over Imperial history and preserving its traditions. Ilmarans turned into fanatical zealots of a new faith, while in Thuram, the remnants of the Imperial Wizards established a magocracy that disregards all matters except the arcane, and quickly declined into endogamy. On the west, the Kingdom of Mercia had emerged from the surviving Imperial Legions, establishing a nightmarish rule based on slavery and arbitrary discipline. The four Kingdoms held irreconcilable views and ambitions, and locked together in a small and hostile land as they were, they often plotted against each other or even clashed openly in the battlefield.
But the in-fighting ceased when, generations later, a route back to the old continent of Andoria was discovered, and it was proved that the Horrors were no more. For the first time in centuries humanity looked at the future with optimism, and many left aside the old grudges and obsessions. Expeditions were sent, and thousands of colonists, soldiers, adventurers and ruffians embarked to Archaelund. The promises of land, riches and Imperial relics excited the imagination and ambition of thousands, from mere farmers to noble second-sons.
They quickly found they were not the sole claimnants of Archaelund, and re-colonization has not been peaceful nor easy; the Horrors are gone but they left behind a scarred world, eldritch energies and warped monsters roam the lands, and a subterranean race called the Geldryn, once slaves to the Andorian Empire, now aspire to inherit the surface world. Because of all this, Archaelund is a land full of danger, adventure and opportunity.
Just like many others before, your party of adventurers has finally saved up enough money to embark and sail East. The Silver Star has crossed the Andor Sea for two weeks, when you catch the first glimpse of the ancient land of your ancestors, unimpressed by its mundane visage. Little you suspect that, very soon, you're going to get involved in a plot that traces back to the terror of the final days of the Empire, and now threatens with destroying the remnants of civilization...
