Bastion Announced

“Action RPG” seem to be the genre of choice for PAX announcements, as Supergiant Games (the company formed by ex-EA employees and former Command & Conquer veterans) has announced development of a new Diablo-like title called Bastion. The art style is certainly more colorful than most action RPGs we’ve seen, though, as demonstrated in these screenshots and this announcement trailer:

Finally, the press release:

Supergiant Games Unveils (Bastion), an Original Action Role-Playing Game

Set in a lush imaginative world, the digitally-distributed title invites players to create and fight for civilization’s last refuge as a mysterious narrator marks their every move.

SAN JOSE, CA September 2, 2010 Supergiant Games, an independent start-up studio founded by ex-designers of the hit Command & Conquer franchise, announced today that it is developing Bastion for digital platforms. Featuring a unique interactive narrative style and hand-painted environments in dazzling full-HD, Bastion challenges players to build a new world from the broken remnants of the past.

The goal of the game is to construct a safe haven in the wake of the Calamity, a cataclysmic event that shattered the world into a series of floating islands. As players journey into the wild unknown in search of survivors and supplies, they will confront strange beasts, forge an array of customizable weapons, and gain new powers from specially-brewed spirits. The entire play experience of Bastion is dynamically narrated, gradually revealing a rich backstory as the narrator reacts to the player’s actions in real time.

(Our goal with Bastion is to hit players’ emotional chords in unexpected ways, in addition to delivering highly responsive gameplay that rewards finesse and experimentation,) said game industry veteran Greg Kasavin, Supergiant Games’ Creative Director. (We’re pushing to make it so that players become absorbed in the game’s distinctive setting and narrative tone from the first moments.)

Bastion will be shown in playable form at the PAX Prime event on September 3-5 in Seattle, where it is being featured among the PAX 10, an exclusive selection of the most promising upcoming independent games. (It’s an honor to be selected for the PAX 10 from among all of the inspired and great-looking indie games currently in development,) said Amir Rao, Co-founder of Supergiant Games. (We’re very excited to show Bastion for the first time at PAX, where thousands of people will be able to get their hands on the game and see what makes it special.)

Bastion will also be featured in a new video series chronicling the making of the game, exclusively at GiantBomb.com, the world’s largest editable video game database. In the ongoing series titled (Building the Bastion(, viewers will receive unprecedented insight into the trials and tribulations of independent game development through the story of Supergiant Games. (People all over the world invest countless hours into playing video games, but so few of us ever get to truly find out how they’re made,) said Giant Bomb Editor-in-Chief Jeff Gerstmann. (With Building the Bastion, we’re going let our community ride shotgun with a mix of behind-the-scenes footage and regular live broadcasts that let you interact directly with the developers as they take Bastion from early prototypes to a full and final product.)

Bastion is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2011. The game is not yet rated by the ESRB. For the latest information on the game, visit www.buildthebastion.com.

About Supergiant Games

Founded in 2009, Supergiant Games is a small independent developer with big ambitions: to make games that spark players’ imaginations like the games they played as kids, while enabling them to share the experience with those they love. Prior to forming the company, the founders spent years working together in key design roles on successful, big-budget productions for major publishers, but walked away in order to take bolder creative risks crafting games for people who love gaming. Supergiant Games is headquartered in San Jose, CA. To learn more, visit www.supergiantgames.com.

About Giant Bomb

GiantBomb.com is a website about video games for people who love gaming. The site features the world’s largest editable video games database, and is also the definitive source for gaming information, news, and reviews. Led by veteran games journalist Jeff Gerstmann, Giant Bomb’s editorial team produces hours of original video each week and a regular podcast that reaches over 100,000 listeners each week. At the heart of Giant Bomb is its passionate community that contributes massive amounts of user-generated content and actively participates in site quests and forum discussions. Giant Bomb is a Whiskey Media property located in San Francisco, CA.