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[Tyranny] Obsidian's Brush with Evil

WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc-WqIRNDKY

The armies of the evil Overlord Kyros march across the world. Only a small group of rebels still holds out against the forces of evil.

You are an important commander in that evil army and it's your task to help crush the last remnant of resistance and usher in Kyros' glorious reign.

What, you didn't think you'd be fighting against evil, did you?


Tyranny is the latest game from Obsidian. Built in the Pillars of Eternity engine, it's an isometric RPG. Unlike Pillars, the game doesn't use classes, only skills, allowing you to build your character pretty much in whatever way you want.

The devs are also claiming that, as an important figure in Kyros' forces, your choices matter and are going to affect the entire world somehow and people in that world will actually react to what you've done or didn't do. It sounds like Alpha Protocol in the Bronze Age. Though it's unknown if you can be quite the violent psycho Mike Thorton could be.

Here's a link to Tyranny's official home page

And now for some more videos:

Dev Diary 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hrzHX1O7MA


Introduction and Character Creation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ9-o57fh6M

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Posts

  • FrozenzenFrozenzen Registered User regular
    Oh my, I had no idea they wanted this game to be all about choice and consequence. Hopefully it's as good at this aspect as Alpha Protocol.

  • WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    Article on Polygon on the world's lore and some important people.

    Also included, a brief history lesson on why the Bronze Age ended and the Iron Age began.

  • Rhan9Rhan9 Registered User regular
    I'm all about this. The concept is intriguing, and being able to be on the side of "evil" for once, and not in the stupidly moustache twirling way, is great.

  • CaptainNemoCaptainNemo Registered User regular
    Sounds neat. Reminds me of the first few Black Company novels.

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  • Rhan9Rhan9 Registered User regular
    Sounds neat. Reminds me of the first few Black Company novels.

    Oh god yes, that's the nebulous vibe I was getting. That's it down to a T.

  • CaptainNemoCaptainNemo Registered User regular
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    Sounds neat. Reminds me of the first few Black Company novels.

    Oh god yes, that's the nebulous vibe I was getting. That's it down to a T.

    Yeah, especially with the evil Overlord being a lady. I'm definitley more intrigued by this then Pillars of Eternity.

    PSN:CaptainNemo1138
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  • WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    New Dev Diary video up. How do you design a world where, essentially, Sauron won without making it all terribly depressing?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqlufiPqgZA

  • LorekLorek Registered User regular
    On phone so can't post links atm but
    Game is up for preordering with a release date of November 10th!

  • WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    Tyranny's going to be released a month from now, November 10th.

    Which is way sooner than I expected, to be honest.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LGj3TpEBZ8

  • AxenAxen My avatar is Excalibur. Yes, the sword.Registered User regular
    Awesome.

    A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
  • Dr. ChaosDr. Chaos Post nuclear nuisance Registered User regular
    Surprising but then again, they did say it was going to be a shorter sort of game then something like Pillars so quicker release I guess.

    Works for me.

    Pokemon GO: 7113 6338 6875/ FF14: Buckle Landrunner /Steam Profile
  • Smaug6Smaug6 Registered User regular
    Axen wrote: »
    Awesome.

    Awesome to the Max

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  • SpawnbrokerSpawnbroker Registered User regular
    Oh my god, November 10th? I'll have less than a month with Civilization VI, and I still haven't completed Pillars of Eternity yet!

    Steam: Spawnbroker
  • FrozenzenFrozenzen Registered User regular
    Welp, gotta finish up white march before this is out.

    I really really hope they nail the alpha protocol level of different outcomes depending on your actions.

  • WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    Frozenzen wrote: »
    I really really hope they nail the alpha protocol level of different outcomes depending on your actions.

    The reactivity is the big selling point just after the "working for Sauron" angle, so fingers crossed.

  • SpawnbrokerSpawnbroker Registered User regular
    Yeah I'm super interested in whether they can keep things interesting, since you're going to be working for the bad guys. I expect it might turn some people off or lead to us not caring about the main character at all. Or maybe there's a major choice early in the game to keep working for the big bad or betray him.

    If anyone can pull it off, it's the writers at Obsidian, though. So I'm optimistic.

    Steam: Spawnbroker
  • BurnageBurnage Registered User regular
    When was the last time an RPG (or, hell, any game) forced you to be evil? The one that's sticking out in my head is Dungeon Keeper but there must have been something more recent than that.

  • WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    Burnage wrote: »
    When was the last time an RPG (or, hell, any game) forced you to be evil? The one that's sticking out in my head is Dungeon Keeper but there must have been something more recent than that.

    Well, there's the Overlord series. The first one did allow you to be sort of not awful as you took over the world, but you were still guiding your minions to conquer the world in the name of Evil.

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    I've always been intrigued by the 'really bad guy with good intentions and possibly even good results' stories, like the dwarf story in dragon age origins or the dark lord in mistborn.

    The Achemaenids are a great go-to source, too.
    Yes, they were tyrannic autocrats by any modern standards, and get a lot of bad press from the greeks, but:

    1. They established order and societal norms in an area that before had been mostly marked by slavery, ethnic cleansing and genocide.(Read the biblical accounts of living under the Persians vs the Assyrians or Babylonians from the perspective of the Jews, big difference). Basically abolished chattel slavery for the most part in their lands, introduced the idea that conquest didn't mean just coming in and murdering and enslaving everyone.
    2. Established a bulwark against the nomadic tribes that periodically overran the region.
    3. Linked together the world in a huge way. Went from the middle east being a bunch of isolated warring ethnic states to a place where greeks were running around trading in india and afghanistan in a couple of hundred years.

    All things considered, for a lot of people back then serving the king of kings was a lot better than whatever they had before.

    Jealous Deva on
  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    I've played Shadowrun and Pillars for, like, 5 minutes each. I should give them another chance some time.

    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • SpawnbrokerSpawnbroker Registered User regular
    Cantido wrote: »
    I've played Shadowrun and Pillars for, like, 5 minutes each. I should give them another chance some time.

    Pillars is the best Baldur's Gate game to come out in the past 15 years that isn't running on an older engine. I haven't played the DLC yet, but I've heard it's very good too.

    Steam: Spawnbroker
  • DuffelDuffel jacobkosh Registered User regular
    Really digging on this setting and concept. The Bronze Age was boss and needs more coverage in fantasy games. Everything doesn't have to be the Middle Ages/Renaissance.

    Wasn't expecting it to come out this quickly. That's a pleasant surprise.

  • vagrant_windsvagrant_winds Overworked Mysterious Eldritch Horror Hunter XX Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    I've always been intrigued by the 'really bad guy with good intentions and possibly even good results' stories, like the dwarf story in dragon age origins or the dark lord in mistborn.

    For another more fictional examples: Code Geass, Lelouch. Evil bastard using evil methods to fight other evil bastards with good intentions and good results.

    In comic books, there's Namor, Dr. Doom, and Black Adam. Some versions of Cyclops and Magneto fit as well.

    vagrant_winds on
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  • Dr. ChaosDr. Chaos Post nuclear nuisance Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    There are so many games that set you into a role of hero by default and you can work your way out of that through choices, its fascinating to see an RPG do it the other way around.

    Hopefully there are a lot of choices to make that are there just to be a bastard that wants to see the world burn and ruin people's lives or are so ridiculous they run along the lines of dark humor.

    A good spectrum of evil, not just for the greater good and the ends justify the means. In Pillars, my bleak walker is almost 100% fueled by his own greed and amusement. Also occasionally helping out his squad that puts up with all his crap somehow.

    Dr. Chaos on
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  • vagrant_windsvagrant_winds Overworked Mysterious Eldritch Horror Hunter XX Registered User regular
    Pillars and Aloha Protocol have some pretty fun evil choices but they're not fully the same thing.

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  • Wraith260Wraith260 Happiest Goomba! Registered User regular
    Pillars and Aloha Protocol have some pretty fun evil choices but they're not fully the same thing.

    this typo amuses me more than it probably should. :lol:

  • DuffelDuffel jacobkosh Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    Aloha Protocol

    Now that's a game I'd pay to see.

    Most RPGs (Mass Effect, AP, etc) are kind of limited by telling a certain kind of story. In ME, you're always going to be Shepherd, Savior of the Galaxy. But some people really want to get dark and edgy with that, so you get the Renegade options, which are an uneasy spectrum from "pragmatic" to "ruthless" to "sociopathic" to "straight-up no-shit war criminal", all on the same side of the spectrum.

    The setup here is, of course, limited in its own ways, but it's from the other side of the spectrum. I usually try to play a "good", idealistic character in my RPGs, and the plotting mostly allows for that. And so I end up playing more or less the same way every time. But making your character aligned with an evil overlord from the outset really complicates your decisions. If I try to make the most of a difficult situation, and help people where I can... am I not essentially a kind of mid-level bureaucrat in a vicious system, lacking even the credibility of committing fully to the cause, and thus respected by no one? Would it not be better to at least have the conviction to make this awful system work? I've never really been forced to make those kinds of decisions before in an RPG.

    And I think it's really neat that they're doing this, because it ties into a lot of the periods in history I like to read about and study. When you read about, say, the actions of the Hellenistic kingdoms or the Roman Empire, or even people like the Mongols - the wars that they waged and all the incipient atrocities, massacres of villages and royal families and so on - one thing that stands out is that most of that was done less with outright malice than simply being the inevitable outcome of a world where the balance of power was fragile and chaotic.

    There's a really great scene in Justified where Raylan, the protagonist, is trying to convince one of the villains to call off his feud and leave his (Raylan's) family alone. And the villain is simply having none of it. The viewer assumes this is just stubbornness on the part of the villain, but the villain points out he doesn't really have a choice of his own in the matter: the second he shows any sign of mercy or weakness, his own goons will stop viewing him as a boss and start viewing him as a target. It doesn't matter if he really wants Raylan's family dead or not, he has to kill them if he doesn't want to end up dead himself. Those are just the rules of his world, and their ugliness does not in any way change their essential reality.

    I'm looking forward to seeing if that's the kind of choices we're dealing with. Especially given that most of the backgrounds that were listed state you never really had a choice on whether to join the overlord or not. The legionary grunts who crucified Spartacus's army probably didn't have a lot of choices along the way, either.

    Duffel on
  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    I had no idea this game was coming out so soon. I wasn't expecting it until at least after Torment.

  • XantomasXantomas Registered User regular
    Torment sure seems like it's taking FOREVER. I hope it's proportionally awesome.

  • FreiFrei A French Prometheus Unbound DeadwoodRegistered User regular
    Yeah I saw the ad for this pop up on Steam and thought it was releasing now. It's not though and so I just have to go back to my dumb life without this game in it.

    Are you the magic man?
  • durandal4532durandal4532 Registered User regular
    Yay I'm real excited for this! I was a bit tepid on it because I still hadn't finished PoE, but the Iron Age/Bronze Age stuff seems super neat.

    Take a moment to donate what you can to Critical Resistance and Black Lives Matter.
  • ArchsorcererArchsorcerer Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    Wraith260 wrote: »
    Pillars and Aloha Protocol have some pretty fun evil choices but they're not fully the same thing.

    this typo amuses me more than it probably should. :lol:

    I think of future companions for the Shadowrun games and one that is always is on my mind is a surfer Shaman. Wears his wetsuit everywhere.

    This game reminds of Marvel's Thunderbolts for some reason.

    Archsorcerer on
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  • imdointhisimdointhis I should actually stop doin' this. Registered User regular
    I wonder if the combat is more responsive in this one?

    Pillars to me felt like trying to herd cats that go out of their way to ignore you

  • SLyMSLyM Registered User regular
    If anyone is curious about the gameplay, Day9 was given an early version to stream for a bit today.

    My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
  • Smaug6Smaug6 Registered User regular
    RPS feature on a couple of hours playthrough of the game. The prologue chapter affecting the rest of the game is awesome. Awesome to the max.

    https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/10/17/tyranny-preview-tiers/

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  • AspectVoidAspectVoid Registered User regular
    Smaug6 wrote: »
    RPS feature on a couple of hours playthrough of the game. The prologue chapter affecting the rest of the game is awesome. Awesome to the max.

    https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/10/17/tyranny-preview-tiers/

    I wish they had bigger images. I'd love to actually be able to read the text in the screenshots they took.

    PSN|AspectVoid
  • vamenvamen Registered User regular
    Oooh it looks like the part size is 4 max? Woo! Thank goodness. 6 player parties are such a huge turn off for me. It's just too big. 3 or 4 is my sweet spot.

  • AxenAxen My avatar is Excalibur. Yes, the sword.Registered User regular
    vamen wrote: »
    Oooh it looks like the part size is 4 max? Woo! Thank goodness. 6 player parties are such a huge turn off for me. It's just too big. 3 or 4 is my sweet spot.

    IIRC this is exactly the reason they went with 4.

    A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
  • AspectVoidAspectVoid Registered User regular
    Axen wrote: »
    vamen wrote: »
    Oooh it looks like the part size is 4 max? Woo! Thank goodness. 6 player parties are such a huge turn off for me. It's just too big. 3 or 4 is my sweet spot.

    IIRC this is exactly the reason they went with 4.

    Five is perfect for me, but that's because for the last decade my table group has been 5 players + DM, so that's what I'm most used to.

    PSN|AspectVoid
  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    I think Day9 just orgasmed over spellcrafting.

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