inXile has announced on the Kickstarter update page for Torment: Tides of Numenera that the spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment will be delayed into 2016, and that Wasteland 2 project lead Chris Keenan will be shepherding the game from here on out. He is taking over from Kevin Saunders, who is leaving the studio.
”There is a core vision in place and along with the creative leadership of Colin, George and Adam, I plan to ensure the vision is upheld,” Keenan wrote in the update.
Saunders did not explicitly list any reasons for his departure, only that with the major production and creative decisions complete, he was superfluous and that the rest of the development team agreed with him that his services were no longer required.
The announcement comes a month after inExile released an alpha build of a Crisis scenario from the game to select backers from the Kickstarter. Crises are scenarios in which the player has multiple options of resolving, even during combat. For example, a player may talk to a key enemy while fighting to get them to stop and parley, or intimidate them, and so on. Combat may have situations in which some mechanical actions must be taken or a trap will go off.
Keenan stated that the releasing the Alpha Crisis Scenarios to backers for feedback was ”a big step” towards to getting to a Beta build, but that the game would also have to be pushed to 2016. ”The level art is largely done,” he revealed, ”and we’re making good progress on the general game systems, level design and UI elements.”
The Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter launched in March 2013 and raised almost $4.2M in crowdfunding. It was originally set to be released in December 2015.
