I'm feeling downright optimistic about Eternal Strands, an upcoming RPG from Dragon Age vet Mike Laidlaw's new studio Yellow Brick Games. For those not in the know about who Laidlaw is, he was the lead director and designer of Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Inquisition—as for the game, let me break it down for you.
Eternal Strands looks like what you'd get if you took the physics interactions from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, then built an entire RPG around 'em. As explained in this handy blog post, you'll be flinging around three fundamental elemental forces—fire, ice, and telekinesis—alongside your weapons and armour. The examples that Yellow Brick gives involve trapping an enemy inside a forcefield, then setting the inside on fire until your enemy's cooked through, or using your ice beam to pin a dragon's wing to a cliffside.
If that wasn't enough to get me hopeful, the team only went ahead and grabbed the mother of all ominous narration, Baldur's Gate 3's Amelia Tyler, to voice the Surgeborn. Who, from what I surmise, are this setting's supernatural evil plot device, back from a 27-year sabbatical. A little tropey, sure, but tropes exist because they work—the Darkspawn did. As did Metaphor: Refantazio's "humans", to pull from a more recent example.
Tyler will be the voice of the Surgeborn, and you can hear her in a trailer shared with us during the PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted segment (shown above), remarking: "Let's not lie to each other… I like you". Our protagonist Brynn doesn't feel the same. I'm at least curious at the idea that the Surgeborn are going all yandere—then again, I'm a sucker for villains with an intense and weird interest in you.
Other than that, the trailer continues to show the fun physics interactions that Yellow Brick Games has promised—catching a wagon a giant throws at you to fling it back, bouncing off a forcefield for a sick trickshot, and tearing away an enemy's shield to hurl it at its mate. I get the sneaking suspicion that this game could fall flat on its face regarding its story (though I've not seen much evidence it will), and I'll still have a blast seeing exactly how I can style on some dragons. Oh, and there's a release date, too.
Eternal Strands will be coming sooner rather than later, with the trailer announcing both a collaboration with FF14 developers Creative Studio 3 on some free DLC, as well as a release date of January 28, 2025 on Steam, which means it's only around two months before you get to hear Tyler whisper sweet nothings into your headphones once again.
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