Stories: The Hidden Path Announced for PlayStation 4

Spearhead Games, the Montreal team behind co-op puzzle game Tiny Brains, hit us up with a press release to announce their latest title, Stories: The Hidden Path. As you might have guessed from the fact that we’re covering it here on GameBanshee, Stories: The Hidden Path is an RPG, an action-RPG to be precise. It sports colorful graphics and is “coming soon” on PlayStation 4, but that’s not the most interest element I can see.

The most promising part is the fact that the developers want to provide choices with real consequences, and seem to have found an original angle for this overworn bullet-point. According to the official website, the player’s actions will not only influence the story, but also “the motivations and behaviors of other characters” dynamically. This will apparently make every playthrough a different experience, although the language is so vague that it’s hard to say what the system actually entails.

What little we know, we know thanks to a blog post on the official PlayStation blog, courtesy of one of the developers, Simon Darveau. The language is still vague, but it’s clear that we’re dealing with more than simple bespoke story paths:

We’re building Stories to feel like an enchanted book with a different tale to tell each time you open it. Every choice you make in the game affects the storyline in real-time, and the narrator adapts his tale dynamically to reflect your course of action. With beautiful illustrations at every turn of the page, Stories will have you diving deeper into the narrative nuances each time you play.
We want to make Stories more than a traditional action-RPG, so we’re crafting a fresh storytelling system that we think will bring extra charm and maybe even a few surprises to our newest title. We’re super-proud of how the game is turning out and very excited to share more with you all in the coming months.

Here’s the announcement trailer:

And the fiÃ²Ã² press release:

Alter the Past, Rewrite the Future with Stories: The Hidden Path
As the sole survivor of the vanguard, sky corsair Reynardo is the last line of defense against the mighty imperial armada about to overtake the entire realm. Reynardo fights against impossible odds, knowing that the fate of everything he holds dear rests on his shoulders.
Welcome to Stories: The Hidden Path, an action-RPG set in a vibrant universe filled with floating islands, majestic airships, and flamboyant magic.
Every choice you make in Stories affects the storyline in real-time, and the narrator adapts his tale dynamically to reflect your course of action. With beautiful illustrations at every turn of the page, Stories will have you diving deeper into the narrative nuances each time you play.
Stories: The Hidden Path is coming soon to PS4. For more information, please visit www.storiesthehiddenpath.com.
About Spearhead Games
Spearhead Games is a Montreal-based independent developer. The studio’s first title, cooperative action puzzler Tiny Brains, followed the antics of four super-powered lab animals in their quest to escape a mad scientist’s nefarious tests. Next, the team built a competitive physics-based game called Arena Cyber Evolution (ACE) as an experiment in community development. Spearhead Games was founded by industry veterans Simon Darveau, design director on Assassin’s Creed III, Malik Boukhira, game designer on Assassin’s Creed II and Dead Space 3, and Atul Mehra, development director on the Army of TWO franchise.

As usual, it’s best to be cautious when promises like that are made, especially when the language is vague. Plenty of “dynamic” narratives end up feeling artificial and shallow due to the lack of authorial control, and that’s not taking into account the fact that the system might not be so dynamic after all. Still, I’m at least tentatively interested in what otherwise looked like yet another action-RPG with a nice but ultimately generic art style.