Iron Tower’s The Age of Decadence let the player role-play in a low-fantasy world of kings, houses, guilds, and myths of ancient magic. It was an RPG where playing to the strengths of your character – ie your silver-tongued conman won’t last long in a fight – was key to success, and every quest offered possibilities appealing to those who preferred talk or trickery over combat.
Now their next major RPG The New World leaves the fantasy world behind for the massive confines of a ship travelling through the cosmos for generations.
When hyperdrives or faster-than-light travel aren’t options, a generation ship is your other means of long-distance space travel, a spaceship and enclosed environment where generations after generations of travelers are born, live, and die while the vessel travels to its destination. The New World takes place on such a ship, centuries into its voyage. Unfortunately, the purpose of that voyage has long been forgotten except for a militant few and the population has divided into various factions living throughout the ship, people who have only known life and existence on the ship.
It’s into this perilous and wartorn environment that you enter, setting out on a journey from the toxic maintenance areas where a civilization of mutants thrive to the decks where different societies and groups live and fight. You’ll be able to gather a party, wield weapons like energy rifles and hologram projectors, and upgrade yourself with implants to improve skills and find new ways to approach quests. Among this claustrophobic world, each faction offers new opportunities and dangers, as you decide how to ally with (if any) and make decisions that affect the story and your companions.
The New World is still relatively early in development; you can follow its progress and developer Iron Tower Studios through the game’s site and social media.
