Ravensdale Revealed, Information and Video Presentation Emerge

A few sources on the web are reporting that Arcania: A Gothic Tale developer Spellbound Studios is developing another console-exclusive RPG entitled Ravensdale. The news seems to have erupted after the game was quietly spotlighted during a video demonstration of Trinigy Vision Engine 8.0 at the Game Developers Conference.

First in line with some info is RPGWatch:

During a GDC presentation by middleware developer Trinigy a new RPG by Spellbound Entertainment was revealed as one of the reference projects for the new Vision Engine 8. The game is called Ravensdale, and looks exactly like a Steampunk mod of Spellbound’s Gothic spin-off ArcaniA.

Of course the big Gothic forums exploded when they carefully examined the relevant parts of the video, starting ca. at minute 09:45, and noticed strange things. If you look closely you can see that the process name is “Arcania”, many assets seem to be recycled from that game and even a couple of specific ArcaniA features like different colour sets for EU and NA or the weather effects are also present in Ravensdale.

Some additional info (including a small Q&A with Spellbound’s Andreas Speer) can be found at World of Gothic:

Ravensdale is a new project by Spellbound?

I would like to bring some light into the darkness.

Ravensdale already existed before the development of ArcaniA began, and the prototype with the persuasive technology was one of the main reasons why JoWooD Spellbound had selected a developer for ArcaniA.

And since the prototype was “in the corner”?

Ravensdale has never been “scrapped”, it was only postponed and followed up in the background. It is not suddenly there again, but was never gone.

Are there any connections between Arcania and Ravensdale?

In community was partly raised the presumption that the Ravensdale demo represents just a renamed Arcania.

Ravensdale has nothing to do with ArcaniA, except that ArcaniA based on technology from Ravensdale who Spellbound has brought into the project. Both projects to be based on the same code base.

Interesting.