In 2020, former Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw joined with Ubisoft veterans Jeff Skalski, Frédéric St-Laurent B, and Thomas Giroux to launch a new studio called Yellow Brick Games. Today, three and a half years later, they've finally revealed what they're getting up to: A new action-adventure called Eternal Strands.
Eternal Strands follows the tale of Brynn, a young Weaver—presumably magic, not basket—who's on a quest to restore the cultural home of her people by uncovering the mysteries of a once-powerful nation called the Enclave. That's a process that will of course involve throwing down with all sorts of enemies including 25-foot-tall monstrosities called Arks, which she can actually climb onto in order to deliver a proper walloping.
The game's big hook is a promised use of advanced physics-based systems that will enable players to use the environment and extreme weather to their advantage in combat: Chucking boulders at enemies with telekinetic powers, for instance, or using trees to block incoming fire. As a Weaver, players will also have access to powerful magic that will also interact with the game world: Ice spells will be more effective in the cold, while fire will consume dry grass and trees during heatwaves.
- Eternal Strands, the physics-heavy RPG being headed by Dragon Age veteran Mike Laidlaw, will roll out a playable demo a week ahead of its full release
- Wartorn is a top-down fantasy tactics game co-created by BioShock's lead designer, inspired by a forgotten Bungie title where you command dwarves to blow up zombies
"Our hope with Eternal Strands is to deliver an adventure that brings a sense of fun and excitement to fantasy, while encouraging players to experiment with its systems," Laidlaw said. "It’s a very different game to ones I’ve worked on in the past, and it’s been a delight to generally answer the question ‘what if the player does X?’ with ‘Cool!’ It’s also exciting to have a chance to build an all-new world that encourages and reacts to this kind of play."
Visually, Eternal Strands has something of an Immortals Fenyx Rising vibe to it (although you could probably insert any number of stylized, brightly-colored fantasy games into its place if you prefer) but the interactive systems sounds more like Larian's Divinity games and Baldur's Gate 3: Dump some oil, set it on fire to burn enemies, then use the smoke to cover your advance. (And hope that catastrophe isn't following too close behind.) Eternal Strands is clearly more action-oriented than Larian's party-based RPGs so it'll be very interesting to see how those systems work in the middle of a hectic, real-time fight, but I would imagine the potential for chaos is very high.
Eternal Strands physics systems won't just be useful in combat: "Every surface is climbable," Yellow Brick Games said, and "magical abilities can create bridges, burn barriers, or launch Brynn across the world."
"The next-generation physics system encourages and rewards player creativity in exploration as much as combat. As the Enclave’s secrets unfold, return to base camp to consult with a rich cast of characters. Each are keen to discover the mysteries of what happened to this lost bastion of power and knowledge."
Eternal Strands is set to come out in 2025, and will be available for PC on Steam. Have a look at some screens below.
