Tyranny Video Interview and Preview

It looks like most previews coming out for Tyranny come largely from non-English websites, but there are still a couple of newsworthy items we can round up to bring you the latest information on the title from Gamescom.

RPGWatch has a preview with some mixed thoughts. They are excited about the spell crafting system for the game but also express concerns about the changes made to the game’s combat system compared to Pillars of Eternity. Here’s a snippet:

Nick selected frost as the base for the spell. After that he selected an expression sigil, which defines how the spell is shaped in the world. There were only 3 shown, with ‘many more’ coming. Focused, was the first one, which meant it would be a touch spell and could only be used at closed range and for a single target. The second is a distance spell to cover a long range, like a fire ball and AOE type of spells. The last one allows creating a cone spell, which is like an AOE spell but then using a smaller section. The necessary sigils can be found throughout the game and you can study these to use them later in skill creation.

Once the spell is created it is possible to add accents to the spell. Our main character is a magic user and he has a lore skill of 112. The spell we just created requires a lore skill of 32 to use, so tere is room to make the spell more powerful. By selecting the intensity sigil, the amount of damage that is done is increased as is the required lore to cast the spell. In similar fashion the range can be increased and there are ‘many more’ accents that can be applied. The more accents that are added to a spell, the higher the required lore skill that is required to cast it will be. Once created the spell can be renamed and personalized, after which you can put it in one of your spell casting slot to make it ready for use.

There is no limit to the amount of spells you can create and you can also give them to your party members. However you do need to have found the parts for the spells you want to create. The icon that is given to the spell is a combination of the core and the expression icons. The accents that are applied to the spell do not change that icon anymore. This means that you can end up with more than one spell in your inventory that looks the same, but act somewhat differently. Nick did mention that there are options to change the icon to something else of your choosing. However, spells that share the same core and expression also share the same cooldown, which makes it less usable to have multiple types of spells in your spell slots.

While the folks at GameStar have a long video interview accompanied by some footage of the game: