Celebrating their presence in gamescom 2020, developer Drop Bear Bytes has released a pre-alpha showreel for their upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG Broken Roads. The Steam store page for the game is also up which lists the release date as late 2021. Blending together established as well as all-new role-playing elements into a traditional isometric RPG, Broken Roads will see players traveling through authentic Australian locations in a desolated future.
Watch the pre-alpha showreel below:
The game tells the story of a group of companions as they make their way across Western Australia, encountering new friends, overcoming terrible enemies, and uncovering a mystery behind ever-stranger happenings in the Never Never.
Broken Roads’ real-time exploration and turn-based combat is beautifully illustrated with hand-drawn artwork throughout, with the goal of offering an experience of playing in concept art – 3D characters, VFX, 2D environments and props all follow this painterly style. The game also presents players with an original morality system: the Moral Compass. This novel design sees dialogue options and questing decisions influence, and be influenced by, a character’s philosophical leaning. Player decisions will shift a character’s philosophical leaning and alter their future choices, as well as open up Moral Traits that can help or hinder.
Drop Bear Bytes is comprised of industry veterans and talented newcomers, with alums from the likes of CCP Games, Riot, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts and Torus Games. The environments and props are being produced by Mighty Vertex, the art studio behind the isometric graphics in Harebrained Schemes’ Shadowrun series of RPGs. We reported earlier this year that RPG veteran Colin McComb has also joined the team as the creative lead. All in all, the future is looking quite pleasant for the indie studio.
Features
- All-new post-apocalyptic setting
- Unique morality system influencing dialogue, quests and character development
- Authentic Australian locations and environments
- Blend of traditional and original RPG mechanics
- Up to 6 party members
- Turn-based tactical combat
- Hand-drawn artwork
- A content-rich and densely-crafted world