Fancy taking in a combat-RTS hybrid that has been created and designed with a gamepad in mind? You’ll want to be keeping an eye out for the launch of Lornsword Winter Chronicle this coming Fall.
Coming about via the minds of former Creative Assembly developers at independent studio Tower Five is the narrative driven fantasy action-strategy title, Lornsword Winter Chronicle. Due to launch on Xbox One, and PS4 in a few months time, this is a game that combines real-time strategy with an engaging narrative. You can also throw in a direct and action-based control system that has been specifically designed with a gamepad in mind, for good measure.
In Lornsword Winter Chronicle you are put in charge and control of Corun, a young Lornknight placed in command of the small fortified town of Tulza in the southern province of the Lorn Empire. From here you’ll get the chance to explore a desolate, harsh world of snow and ice where clashes with rival factions are commonplace in the quest for dominance. To survive you’ll have to build your army and military strength, erecting bases, gathering food, and earning money to keep your forces adequately stocked.
You may expect battles to be fast and frenetic as combatants clash on a dynamic battlefield, and in Lornsword that is certainly the case. It provides a world where blades and bayonets clash with the dark magic of priests and shadow weavers, and where skilled range attacks by arrow or matchlock rifle deal damage from afar.
Thankfully though you’ll be able to get a helping hand in your quest as drop-in local co-op allows the chance to fight it out with a friend alongside, as you face the onslaught of oppressors. It is here where you’ll be able to diversify your attack strategy, hoping for battlefield justice up close and personal with the hero or summon soldiers to attack a specific target in heated clashes.
But as any good tactician knows, an army marches on its stomach. You’ll have to hunt down resources in order to feed, equip and finance an army by exploring the vast landscape and capturing farms and gold mines. There is most certainly a delicate balance that will mean you’ll have to focus properly on exploration, resource management and combat.
And further more, when Lornsword Winter Chronicles releases you can be witness to a rousing orchestral score by Hungarian composer Thomas-Adam Habuda, whose previous work includes promotional music tracks for 20th Century Fox’s ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ and more recently Marvel’s ‘Avengers: Endgame’.
“We at Tower Five love real-time strategy games, yet the genre has struggled to make the move to consoles, as gamepad controls were ill-equipped for many of the genre classics”, said Renaud Charpentier, Game Director at Tower Five. “That’s why we rethought from the ground up how a strategy game would work. Now you have direct control of your Lornknight, while also having to manage resources and command a larger army. It’s a lot to take in, but having to care for your specific avatar and throngs of units ensures that there’s never a dull moment.”
For those over on PC, to coincide with the console launch, Lornsword Winter Chronicle will come out of Steam Early Access to unleashing the full adventure upon PC players.
Interested? Excited? Well, if you’re an Xbox Insider member then you can participate in previewing and providing feedback by partaking in the Lornsword Winter Chronicle demo from today. The Lornsword Playtest will commence today from 10am Pacific Time / 6pm BST.
Before that drops in though make sure you check out the trailer below, and hit us up in the comments. We’d love to hear what you think of the upcoming launch of Lornsword Winter Chronicles on Xbox One and PS4 alongside the PC version.