The Banner Saga series will come to a close in just a few months. The story-driven, “XCom, but with vikings” trilogy will close with the Banner Saga 3, and developer Stoic finally has a release date for us:
Banner Saga 3 launches July 24, 2018! It's time to pre-order the game on @steam_games and @GOGcom now. And check out our pre-order video – like, subscribe, comment – we've been working hard to share the final game with you! The end has come. #bannersagahttps://t.co/5mCCuneLHJ pic.twitter.com/uH1OVY865t
— The Banner Saga (@BannerSaga) April 12, 2018
It reads: “Banner Saga 3 launches July 24, 2018! It’s time to pre-order the game on @steam_games and @GOGcom now. And check out our pre-order video – like, subscribe, comment – we’ve been working hard to share the final game with you! The end has come.”
The conclusion to the trilogy was announced last January on Kickstarter, and raised over double its $200,000 goal. It features the same lovely, hand-drawn art style the series is known for, and promises a satisfying (and most likely gut-wrenching) conclusion to difficult journey of its powerful characters.
The Banner Saga series features two distinctly different elements, all wrapped up in a tale of Norse mythology (including giants, vikings, and all manner of cold). The first element is the grid-based battle system that should be familiar to anyone who has played a turn-based strategy game before. The second is a resource management system, where you lead a caravan of starving citizens across a beautiful (but bleak) Nordic landscape in an attempt to outrun Armageddon. The Banner Saga 3 promises to continue its rich storytelling; it is billed as an “adult” game despite a lack of extreme violence, sexuality, or adult language. Instead, the series rewards you for cultivating relationships and making tough decisions, and those choices can dramatically affect which characters side with you, fight with you, or even if they survive until the finale.
Stoic has done well with the series, and we quite liked both the original Banner Saga and its sequel. If you are a fan of strategy games and love a good yarn, you have plenty of time to play through the first two until the Banner Saga 3 releases for PC on July 24.
