The indie project World of Anterra has a lot planned: A huge open world with an exciting story behind it, a fun combat system and immense gameplay freedom. But first, the Kickstarter campaign has to be a success.
“Skyrim in pixel graphics” – that’s what the makers of World of Anterra promise. The Kickstarter project wants to learn from the best like Elder Scrolls, Ultima and other role-playing game icons, but at the same time bring enough innovative ideas of its own on board. We’ll take a closer look at how exactly this is supposed to work.
But before that, you can see for yourself and watch the following trailer:
This is how World of Anterra should play
The game world
You will be able to discover islands, countries and continents in World of Anterra. There will be no level restrictions for certain areas or places that are only available after a certain point in the story.
But if you want to get from A to B, you don’t have to walk the long way. You can simply zoom out of the detailed view and move around on the overview map. This way you can move much faster, but of course you miss out on all the loot and possible adventures along the way. You can also theoretically explore the entire world in the detailed view.
The Story
Whatever direction you take, the story should be able to adapt to it and thus be told non-linearly. This gives you even more freedom, but could also lead to you completely losing sight of the actual main story – as was the case with many in Skyrim.
The dialogues will probably also be quite different from what we are used to. It will be possible to have conversations with every NPC, which you can steer in certain directions yourself. You will be asked questions again and again, which you can compile yourself from a pool of words and letters. We are definitely curious to see how this will play out in the end.
The story is not told through novel-like walls of text, but also through the game world and the conversations of the inhabitants. It is a magical world that is shaped by religious and philosophical questions. You can create your own character, so there will not be a fixed character like in The Witcher.
The Gameplay
The combat system looks very unspectacular at first glance. You beat your opponent with a button until they die. However, the more attacks and spells you learn, the more exciting it becomes. How you position yourself, for example, can also make the difference between victory and defeat.
Whether you want to fight giant monsters, hunt fairies or explore the world by ship is up to you. By the way, you can also play all of this in co-op. The focus, however, is on the single-player experience.
What else is important?
The game is still in the middle of a (Kickstarter campaign) Their goal of just under 100,000 Euros has not yet been reached. However, as this article goes live, the developers are already well on their way with over 66,000 euros. After all, the campaign runs until 23 September.
If the campaign is a success, World of Anterra should be released in 2023. The development studio 81monkeys has been working on the title for three years. Incidentally, World of Anterra will be playable in German as well as many other languages and will be released on all major consoles and the PC.
Editor’s conclusion
World of Anterra could be just the kind of indie gem I’ve been looking for again for a while. But the emphasis is on could. The new dialogue system sounds totally exciting, but could quickly become too exhausting and tedious in the final game. The battle system could be a lot of fun with all the spells and abilities, but hopefully it’s not too undemanding at first. And the story could excite me with all the freedom, but maybe it will lose me quickly with the loose plot.
You get the idea: could, could and could again. World of Anterra sounds like my dream of a pixel role-playing game on paper, but must be careful not to get lost in the ambitious ideas. Hopefully the Kickstarter campaign will be a success, though, so I can find out!
The developers, by the way, also have several years of video game experience, having worked on titles like Hearthstone and the indie hit Outer Wilds. The team has been around for over four years.
Do you think World of Anterra has the potential to be a really good role-playing game or are you still sceptical? Feel free to write us in the comments!
