It sure worked for Baldur's Gate 3.
Our reviewer Lauren Morton called Greedfall “adequate” when she reviewed the RPG from by French studio Spiders, saying its systems “parrot those of successful RPGs, but they’re all a bit thin.” The studio has higher hopes for its sequel, which is scheduled for release in the summer of 2024. In a first for Spiders, it’ll be coming out in early access.
“Greedfall 2 is certainly a much more ambitious game than the first one,” said producer Reda Isber during a recent livestream as part of Nacon Connect. “And so early access seemed like the right path to take. We’re relying heavily on early access to collect player feedback and see if we’re heading in the right direction.”
Jehanne Rousseau, CEO of Spiders and lead writer of Greedfall, explained that Greedfall 2’s new combat system, which lets you control all of your companions, inspired the decision to launch in early access. “It’s not turn-based but you still have this kind of control over your team,” she said, “and for this specific reason having the feedback of the player was something that was super important—because it’s something new. We never did these type of controls before.”
“At launch,” Isber said, “players will have access to the entire beginning of the game. They will be able to explore new environments. And then we are planning updates at regular intervals. To be clear from the outset, saves won’t be compatible between the various updates.”
A cinematic story trailer for Greedfall 2 accompanied the announcement, showing the protagonist being captured and enslaved before fighting for her freedom. So often games in these kind of colonial-era fantasy settings skirt the edges of their themes, but based on this it seems like Greedfall 2 will not. It suggests a game about slavery where you play an escaped slave rather than, say, a sympathetic outsider who does a few sidequests where you have the option to help free a slave here and there.
Also, the boss at the end looks like the concept of war just came to life, birthed from a pile of the battlefield dead, so maybe this’ll be a twofer with some “war is bad” alongside the “slavery is bad.” I’m being flippant, but I’d rather have an RPG that deals with its themes head-on like this than another one where they provide background color to a story of prophecies and lost artifacts or whatever.
Greedfall 2 will be available on Steam when it launches into early access later this year. According to Rousseau, the portion that will be playable is “probably a quarter of the whole content of the game.”
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