Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how many exciting games there are in development. Take inXile Entertainment’s Torment: Tides of Numenara, for example, which had completely dropped off my radar for some reason.
It’s back on there now, thanks to a very intriguing new trailer that shows off some of the fantasy RPG’s bizarre environments. Like an ashen desert filled with great big pustules that occasionally burst and splatter blood everywhere. Lovely.
Torment is inspired by the classic RPG Planescape Torment, but it’s actually set in a different universe, veteran tabletop designer Monte Cook’s deeply odd Numenara. Specifically, it takes place in the strange planet known as The Ninth World.
The Ninth World is in fact Earth, one billion years in the future. The inhabitants of what’s left of the planet have long forgotten the scientific lessons of previous generations, and therefore see any advanced tech as magic – the strange items left behind by the previous eight civilizations that have risen and been destroyed, which range from handheld items to city-sized monstrosities, are known as Numenara. They’re highly prized, and they often have dramatic and bizarre effects on the landscape and people of the Ninth World.
Hence all the lovely weirdness you see in the trailer above. Torment looks like it will capture the distinct feel of the setting, (about which you can find out more on the game’s website) and it’s clearly making good use of Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity engine. After a delay last year, the game’s now expected to release in the fourth quarter of 2015.