With recent releases like Diofield Chronicles and Persona 5 Tactica on the horizon, tactical RPGs are in the middle of a new golden era. One of the games making up this modern trend is the upcoming Arcadian Atlas from developer Twin Otter and publisher Serenity Forge.
Arcadian Atlas follows two lovers in an era of political intrigue, civil war, and powerful magical artifacts. The familiar notes from genre-defining games are where Twin Otter’s owner, Taylor Bair, found the inspiration and grounding of this new game. Though, as he told The Best War Games in an interview, Arcadian Atlas charts its own path. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: TRPGs are enjoying something of a renaissance lately. What do you think is driving that?
A: The resurgence often seems to correspond with age–those of us who grew up playing some of the classics of the genre like Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics are now adults, seeking out a creative way to express ourselves. So you see those influences start to seep in as those who were once players are now developers and have the chance to pay homage while crafting something new and adding their own special mark on a genre they fell in love with.
Q: What inspired Arcadian Atlas?
A: While the inspirations are too numerous to list here, much of them hearken back to the SNES and PS1 era when pixel art really came into its golden age, not just in the absolute sprawling beauty of still images and seamless tilemaps in games like Secret of Mana, but in animation work expressing itself so potently in Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI. These worlds were limited by the hardware at the time, but those constraints gave birth to revolutionary techniques with light, movement, and character emotion. Our love for those characters inhabiting those worlds really drove our passion for Arcadian Atlas–and we think that comes through in the animation work, the gorgeously rendered battlefields, and the rich story.
Q: It's easy to see parallels to Final Fantasy Tactics, is that being intentionally evoked?
A: We’re all huge fans of Final Fantasy Tactics. It’s the only PS1 disc I still own, and our entire team spent countless hours in it growing up. There are many aspects of FFT we’re happy to hold up as an influence, but we also wanted to carve our own path with a very different class and skill system (something that owes a great deal more to Ragnarok Online and, strangely, Diablo 2), and the story is far more focused on the core characters and their development as the world crumbles around them.
Q: Could you explain some of the political intrigue and factions at play in Arcadia?
A: Politically, the land of Arcadia is embroiled in civil war when the eldest surviving heir to the throne, Lucretia Belneive, is declared illegitimate by her stepmother, Venezia, Queen of Dantalion. Lucretia raises the peasantry–the destitute and downtrodden–to resist and reclaim her throne. The ensuing war, driven by these two cold, calculating tacticians, divides the continent between a Lucretian faction and Venezia’s men in Dantalion. Our heroes, Vashti Dahlman and Desmond Rhines, find themselves caught in between, forced to choose sides.
There are other factions as the story progresses, but to avoid spoiler territory, we’ll just say there are others seeking power in Arcadia and they’ll sacrifice anything to get it.
Q: Can you talk about some of the "complex strategic battles" awaiting players?
A: Strategy in Arcadia is a multi-layered playground. On the battlefield layer, you have elevation considerations, water slowing your path, and noxious wastelands. On the class layer, you have units that pack a punch but are slower to surround a foe, while nimbler units may not down a target in a single turn, but they have no problem scaling a cliffside with ease for a flank attack.
On the skill level, you can lay traps for enemies, block off key chokepoints, or sacrifice personal safety by flying into a rage and dealing massive damage for a few crucial turns. And all these layers can change based on the win conditions for a fight. Sometimes, it’s not about beating everyone senseless. Sometimes the odds are overwhelming, and victory means getting out of an ambush alive.
All of the above are actual scenarios that await in Arcadian Atlas, and they’re just a tiny fraction of what the game has on offer.
Q: What was building a TRPG in RPG Maker like? The engine isn't exactly designed for it.
A: Thankfully, we moved development to Unity many years ago and precisely for the reason you guessed: RPG Maker was a great way to prototype the concept, but wasn’t robust enough to support the game we wanted to create. With Unity, we were able to build out complex battle systems that could support laying traps that persist and burn, poison, or shock foes that dare to tread on them, deep skill trees, and meticulously scripted scenes to unfold the drama of Arcadia through thousands of custom animations. Making that switch allowed Arcadian Atlas to fit our original vision and more–we couldn’t be happier with the move.
Q: How complex is the class system? For instance, does Arcadian Atlas feature subclasses or require classes to be unlocked by progressing others?
A: There are our four core classes divided into strategic frameworks: the Cavalier who is a close-range fighter, the Ranger who is a long-range fighter and scout, the Apothecary who dabbles in healing and corruptive potions, and the Warmancer who is a long-range magic class. Each core class can then promote to one of two advanced classes when they advance in level, for a total of 12 classes. The Cavalier for instance can later promote to either the Ronin or Inquisitor class, each with their own powerful strategic philosophies.
And within each class, there are two to three skill trees that further refine their play style. The Warmancer for instance can focus on Ice skills, slowing their enemies and stacking damage against certain status effects, or go for Fire skills and ignite poisoned foes with the powerful Burning status effect.
Q: What's your personal favorite class?
A: It’s so hard to choose just one! I’m personally partial to the Druid (a Warmancer advanced class) for their flashy AoE skills, but my heart for the truly weird goes out to the Shaman (an Apothecary advanced class) for skills like Unholy Revival that resurrects all dead allies, but with limited HP, no SP and as Undead units.
Creating skills that were truly unique to each class, playing on themes while making them relevant and useful regardless of level was incredibly satisfying.
Q: Is there much in the way of side quests and post-game content?
A: As with any good tactical RPG, there are most definitely side quests! We have special contract missions players can accept, often with bizarre enemies or unique win conditions and rewards, and there may even be some secret scenes and units in there somewhere!
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Arcadian Atlas releases July 27 on Steam.