Nothing in the creation of a video game is random.
Behind every choice, behind every action performed by our protagonist, there is a design reasoning.
This also applies to Avril's most peculiar moves, such as the Lunisolar Precession.
The astral form of Moon and Sun orbit around Avril to assist her in fight: equip the Aeternal Seeking rune, spend one Combo Point each Nature to summon the power of Moon and Sun. They will heal you and fight anyone that comes close with their immense power!
This is the explanation we used in our tutorial to explain how to use the most powerful among Avril's moves, which brings together the power of the Sun and the Moon to unleash an ancestral force capable of routing opponents and giving in Avril also an energy recovery. But what exactly is the Lunisolar Precession?
The movement of Sun and Moon
We were inspired by the precession of the equinoxes, also known precisely as Lunisolar Precession. It is the displacement of the axis around which the Earth makes its daily rotation: the cause of the displacement is precisely the combined gravitational attraction of the Sun and the Moon, which causes a slow thrust on the rotation axis creating an oscillation in about 25,800 years.
The Lunisolar Precession in Batora: Lost Haven is an ability that conveys both powers and that we wanted to represent with the motion of two spheres around Avril, which becomes our pivot, our Earth that prevents contact between the Sun and the Moon. In addition to being a spatial movement, for us, an Italian team that’s very attached to the literature of our country, it also represents a quote from Dante, about two identities that attract each other, but never manage to reach each other.
The romantic point of view
Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy, called this phenomenon the “motion of the eighth sphere” and spoke of it in his masterpiece, citing a phenomenon capable of reversing the fleet of stars and bringing our world, infirm, back to its primitive condition, capable of producing the "true fruit". A concept full of romanticism also enriched by the meaning of the rune itself, Aeternal Seeking, inspired by another verse by Dante from the Divine Comedy: "Love, which permits no loved one not to love", one of the most famous verses of the poem and of all Italian literature.
The verse tells the poignant love story between Paolo and Francesca. Even in Hell, they are forced to chase themself to express their love: they fly like birds in the air, twirling around themselves without ever being able to touch each other.
Paolo and Francesca were killed when her husband discovered the feeling that her wife developed for Paolo: she could not be married or love anyone but her husband; however, it is her own love that compels her to do so, and reciprocates Paolo's sincere sentiment.
This is the romantic effort that we wanted to pour into the experience of Batora: Lost Haven, to enrich Avril's adventure with a narrative element that hides lore ready to be explored, drawing inspiration from our Codex and the narrative plot we have created for our first action RPG.
Want to find out more behind-the-scenes details of Batora: Lost Haven? Join us in our Discord channel to interact at any time with the development team!