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There is the impression that the public is waiting for the end of the Banner Saga trilogy forever. In fact, it's been six long years.
The series Banner Saga was never conceived as a trilogy. It was just too ambitious of a story for a game by the independent developer Stoic Studios. Stoic also had no plans to retreat for six years on a match. It is now 2018, however, and the latest addition to the franchise, Banner Saga 3 debuts this week.
"We have always had, since the beginning of Saga 1, that wide Alex Thomas, the principal author of Banner Saga 3 stated at the time of a recent stream of Gamasutra. "We came back to these three goals in order to have a really satisfying conclusion."
Of course, things could not stay exactly the same … Stoic, with his Versus Editor Evil, had to adapt and sometimes change big elements of the game due to technological advances, community comments and general knowledge acquired.There is no way that Banner Saga 3 was exactly like Banner Saga 1 and fortunately for Stoic, it is not the case.
Creation of Significant Sequences
The First Banner Saga presented the story of a world at risk.The players play the role of Multiple characters as they cross a land devastated by creatures called drag, who seek to annihilate all life. It's a tactical and strategic RPG where your actions have lasting consequences throughout the trilogy – and it was something that had to stay.
"In our younger years, we were completely cool by burning the midnight oil for months, but if you want a creative and sustainable project over time, you have to balance that."
For the most part, Stoic managed to create that coherence. There was a basic glimpse and while the details were changing, some things were important to keep, such as central conflict and other philosophies.
"We did not want a generic villain," said Thomas as an example. "It was really a story about relationships and a lot of gray area and not a lot of black and white.To that end, I think we really did what we were trying to do."
Things have had to change however: the technology grew from 2014 to 2018 and the console market is very different. Regarding his production pipeline and the way he markets the games (more on this later)
In addition, Stoic looked at his community and adjusted the story accordingly. to decide what to do with the first game.
"This was never supposed to be a super important choice," explained Thomas, "he was supposed to show that there is has humanity in the drag and you wonder if what you are doing is good, but people have so much hooked on this choice that we have made it much more important for the outcome of Banner Saga 3 . "
The team also found that players did not fully understand the operation of the resource system. During each installment, players collect supplies for their caravans to keep members alive. Stoic found that even after two games, the audience still did not understand why all this was important.
"So for the third game, we calmed down a bit," said Thomas. "They are not so important except when they become extremely important." Without spoiling anything, Thomas claimed that in the third game, the resources do not seem important, but have huge consequences on gaming events.
changes, however, Stoic ensured that the series would felt consistent. Although the first is different from the third, they are still part of a coherent narrative. As the games were launched, the team added more ranks for the characters, for example, and added a free survival mode for dedicated players. Banner Saga 3 continues to build in these two areas. Chief Designer Matt Rhoades pointed out that Stoic did not want every game to be so similar that players get bored, so new features have been added to the combat system and the needs of the community have been taken into account. .
"There is always a need for balance between" is it so different from what people are used to that it no longer feels like we want to It's fresh, "he said." So it was really one of my goals to make sure [ Banner Saga 3 ] felt a little cooler. "
Teaching old dogs new stuff
Even behind the scenes, Stoic had to make some changes, including being able to accommodate the expansion of the company. started as a small team now extends to two studios.What was once a remote team is now mainly in person as a way to increase efficiency.
"Stoic as a studio really grew up during this game, "said producer Zeb West." A natural evolution was to co-locate. "
The most important chan What Stoic did, however, was in the way he managed his time. Crunch is a common and exhausting element of game development, but the studio has learned to create something called "Sympathy Crunch," which ensures that no one works more than 16 hours. If someone has to spend extra time, everyone has to do it.
"Everyone knows what he has to do, he decides how long he needs to do it, and he does it" Thomas said. "We spent a lot of time at the end of production, but we did not all sign up for 16-hour days for three months. "
West said that trying to create a timeline that gets rid of the worst parts of the crisis was a top priority." In our youth, we were completely cool about burning midnight oil for months, but if you want a sustainable and creative project over time, you have to balance that, "he explained. He set deadlines for each member of the team and made sure that most people hit them. Having gradual deadlines also had another benefit.
"I think that improving our game with project management helps to increase visibility on the road and help us solve problems sooner"
A lot of life's Banner Saga could boil down to an improvement, there were a lot of things that involved getting back to basics, but with a few tweaks.
Kickstarter was a huge component of the first game development. The initial goal was $ 100,000, but Stoic was able to raise over $ 720,000. For the third match, the studio returned to the crowdfunding platform. Although achieving a monetary goal was not a matter of life or death for the last episode, Kickstarter had another use.
"As much as the financial aspect was important, we really wanted to engage again with our community," he said. "We all felt like with Banner Saga 2 not being with our community during this time … had been some kind of mistake."
Kickstarter is not as popular As it was the case during the first campaign in 2012, but it still has its advantages. One of the things that the studio – with the publisher Versus Evil – learned during the development of the second installment was the importance of the community for the release of a game. It builds a hype for this, but it also increases feedback, which only makes developers and games better.
Steve Escalante, founder of Versus Evil, learned a lot about the development of Banner Saga & # 39; Kickstarter but how to market a trilogy.
"You have to create these events, the biggest pieces of a launch event, for a mbadive chunk of content," he said. "If you make small updates, you lose momentum and notoriety and you can get inspired."
Learning stronger in his community inspires Stoic and it's something his members will continue to do with the next project.
"One thing we know we want to do is not to go back to a cave and do something for two years without talking to the community and the fans," Thomas said. "The next thing will have much more frequent updates, be more community-oriented for sure."
The Stoic team can not say for sure what will follow for the studio (obviously) but the Artistic Director Arnie Jorgensen the flow in the last 10 minutes, says there are three things that & # 39; They are waiting impatiently.
"We want to stay in the RPG genre," he said. "We want to be tactical, [and] we want to continue the world we are known for."
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