The Case

What do you get when you combine cel shading, beards, the PC and an epic trilogy? Stoic are here to answer that very question with The Banner Saga, a game that reached over 700% beyond its Kickstarter goal back in April 2012. Now, a year and a half later, it is ready to come trudging out of the frozen wastes and stake its claim on the gaming landscape. Join me, my brethren, with a flagon of finest mead in hand, as we take a look at what all the fuss is about.

The Trial

The word Stoic has perhaps never been as apt as in this instance here. The first thing we encounter is a weary old curmudgeon, a true giant of a man, named Ubin, introducing us to the desperate setting of a world without night. The sun, you see, has stopped moving. It simply sits there, overhead, peering down on the world with total disinterest. An event which has not gone unnoticed but, oddly, has passed without any true recognition. As though nobody actually cares. As though...the people themselves had given up.

It does not immediately seem this way, as life is carrying on more or less as it always has. Men go about men’s things, Ubin and his kind wander idly collecting tithes. Just...just passing the time. You see, Ubin is not like other men. In fact, Ubin is not truly a man at all. He is one of the varl. A race of giants, two again as large as any many, with large, graceful horns curving outward from their foreheads. And Ubin is one of the oldest. Arguably one of the wisest. Having lived long enough to see entire generations, entire families, of men lost to the vagaries of time.

But even he is at a loss for what to make of all of this. So he, like everyone else, simply carries on. Stoic, resolute, eternal. What, after all, can one truly do about the movement of the sun? The Gods are dead, both figuratively and literally. An event, perhaps, which could be linked to the current plight if not for the fact that it happened so very long ago. So what is a varl to do but make the best of the situation at hand and push on, day by day?

We join Ubin and his band of tithe collectors as they approach an unassuming little burgh by the sea. Nothing more in mind than gathering whatever they are due, make merry for a time, then move on to the next village and repeat the process all over again. A simple plan for a simple people.

Things, of course, do not go according to plan, going awry even before they reach the trade city of Strand. Though this is not made immediately clear, the tone of their approach and the gruff, thoughtful narration heralding our arrival all speaks to inform us that we stand on the cusp of change. A pivotal moment, though we will not know precisely how much until much later.

Upon arriving, we find the great hall of Strand invaded by brigands, with several people already laying dead and the doors barred from the inside. Enormous, heavy wooden doors that could repel an army for a time. But can keep a varl at bay for only a matter of seconds. This first encounter serves the dual purpose of impressing upon the player how lawless and, literally, Godless, the world has become, as well as being a surprisingly neat tutorial for the gameplay aspect.

Gameplay itself falls into two parts. The vast majority of the game comes in the form of text, with some occasional spattering’s of voiced narration. Most of that is simply reading the dialogue and watching along as it develops, but there are also an ample helping of dialogue choices. Some of which taking the form of a series of questions, all of which you can ask regardless of order, that add flavour text and better inform us of the setting. Whilst others give a greater opportunity to affect the overall flow of play in the form of moral choices.

Unlike many games, these choices are never clear cut, black and white, right and wrong options. They are always divided up into at least three alternatives, with the best course of action being ambiguous at best. And though these choices do not radically alter the flow of events, they can have some extremely noticeable effects in the short term, and even lead to the difference between life and death for characters you meet along the way. During battle, your units will fall and merely become wounded, but during your travels, your decisions can lead to them fleeing this mortal coil permanently. Something which certainly helps propagate a feeling of true player agency.

Even going to war, which happens with increasing frequency as the game progresses, takes the form of dialogue choices as you formulate your strategy from a very simple but suitably complex system. On the surface, it seems nothing more than pick one of these six, which it is. But as the game does not play out in the usual sense of win and lose, that is not as shallow as it can seem. Your true aim is to protect your caravan. This consisting of far more than just your collection of heroes.

Case Review