Stoic Games confirmed that they would be putting out The Banner Saga series out on the Nintendo Switch in its entirety ahead of the launch of The Banner Saga 3– so that Switch owners would be caught up on the story, and also have the ability to have their saves, which carry across games, import into the third game when it launches.

The first game was made available on the Switch in Mid-May; the second one isn’t too far behind. By which I mean it’s out. Now. At this moment. Yes, The Banner Saga 2 launches on the Nintendo Switch today, on June 7. Surprise! Another surprise- owners of the original game get $5 off on the new one!

Collectively, this should give players enough time to get through the first two games going into The Banner Saga 3 (which launches on all platforms simultaneously)- so good on Stoic for living up to their word here. The Banner Saga 3 launches on July 24 for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

It looks like owners of the original @BannerSaga on Switch get a nice little price break on Banner Saga 2. #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/6ZA22tfLDH

— Sean Sean (@DignifiedBeard) June 7, 2018

Anyone who’s been following my posts on here for the last few years knows that I absolutely love The Banner Saga; they’re arguably among my favourite indie games ever. Given that they’re really high profile indie games, and that indie titles have been doing exceptionally well on Nintendo’s Switch, it was only a matter of time before they made the jump to Nintendo’s hybrid.

That happened today- Nintendo announced ion their Spring Nindies Showcase that The Banner Saga games would be coming over to the Switch. The Banner Saga 3 is set to launch on the Switch this Summer, which actually makes the Switch the first console the game has been explicitly confirmed for. The first two games are set to come “soon” as well, though we have no release windows. Nintendo was quick to point out that your decisions will carry over across games, which seems to suggest they might be releasing before the third game is out.

The Banner Saga is an excellent blend of a strategy RPG, a visual novel, and an adventure game; they’re the kinds of games that are perfect for portability, so having the full series on the Switch is a great coup for Nintendo. Check out the announcement trailer for The Banner Saga 3 below.

Stoic Games’ third chapter of The Banner Saga will be here much earlier than we thought. The developer has announced that you can expect to play The Banner Saga 3 this Summer. Originally, the crowd-funded role-playing game was meant to release in Winter 2018.

A new vignette trailer has been released, the first in a series that focuses on the various characters of the game. Fasolt, the Varl loyalist who’s been through Hell and back, is first. Keep in mind that there are spoilers for those who haven’t played the first two games.

The Banner Saga first released in 2014 with its sequel out in 2016. he decisions made in each game carries over into the next so your decisions will always have a long-term effect on the story. The Banner Saga 3 is currently in development for PC and Mac but could head to home consoles later. Could that fabled Nintendo Switch release happen any time in the future? We certainly hope so but let us know your thoughts below.

The Banner Saga series is now a trilogy and it appears it is popular enough that the fans were able to hit the third game’s Kickstarter goal in just one week. The Kickstarter campaign launched on January 24 with an initial desire to hit about $200,000.

Stoic Games, the developer of the series announced it was officially starting the Kickstarter campaign on January 24 with that $200,000 goal. Furthermore, there’s a rather interesting stretch goal to be had in the case of The Banner Saga 3.

Stoic says that if they are able to gain more investment, they will have the ability to offer a playable Dredge character. Those who have played either or both of the first two games know that the Dredge have been the enemy in the past but it looks like we might be getting a brand new look at them in this installment.

Stoic Games have announced The Banner Saga 3, the final part of their conceived trilogy of games, which will conclude the story that started with the original Banner Saga all the way back in 2013. The new game will also continue with the same style of story and characterization, and graphics and music, that made the original game so beloved.

The development of The Banner Saga 3 will be funded at least partially by the Kickstarter for the game which was also just launched today. The Kickstarter’s initial funding goal is $200,000, with loads of rewards listed for other funding tiers along the way. On the whole, however, it seems like The Banner Saga 3 will stick to the same style of gameplay that defined the first game, just expand on it more- which was also the case with The Banner Saga 2, a move for which it admittedly drew some flak.

As of right now, no release date for the game has been announced, but presumably, it won’t be releasing before late 2018 at the earliest. No platforms have been announced, either.

Stoic Games designer and co-founder Alex Thomas spoke to us about the trials and tribulations of creating The Banner Saga, the motivations behind its design, addressing any complaints and much more.

Ravi Sinha: From out of nowhere, The Banner Saga went from a promising tactical RPG to being one of the most compelling games to watch this year. How does that make you feel?

Alex Thomas: It’s pretty amazing, in all honesty. We went into it knowing we were making a niche title- when you break it down it’s a thoughtful strategy game combined with reading a full-sized novel. There’s a reason we never went for publisher funding. We ended up with more reviews on metacritic than Double Fine’s Kickstarter hit, which we found pretty incredible.

We got something like over 250 requests for review code. I think some of it had to do with a new IP from previous BioWare devs, some of it had to do with the unique look and original gameplay, some people were really curious about what the game was at all, and a lot of people wanted to know how one of the first big Kickstarter releases would pan out. I think a lot of people couldn’t wait to publicly call us a huge success or a huge failure, so I’m incredibly relieved the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

"Everybody likes to say this but we really set out to make the game we wanted to make. One of the review comments that sticks out most in my mind is that The Banner Saga is a "game made by artists who didn't compromise on their vision". For better or worse I think this is accurate."

Ravi Sinha: When you left Bioware to kick-start The Banner Saga, how did you first conceive of it? What were your greatest motivators in opting for a mature, Viking-themed game?

Alex Thomas: Everybody likes to say this but we really set out to make the game we wanted to make. One of the review comments that sticks out most in my mind is that The Banner Saga is a “game made by artists who didn’t compromise on their vision”. For better or worse I think this is accurate.

We were fortunate enough that other people came along for the ride. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback on the game and we will be refining a lot of systems for the sequel, but we’re not concerned about the smaller subset of players who were just not into the gameplay. We’re not making a game for everybody, and on a personal level I wish there were more games for adults.

Ravi Sinha: The Banner Saga shares more than a little in common with the likes of Dragon Age and Mass Effect with regards to the choices players make but you chose to overhaul the norms of RPGs in favour of having one’s choices follow them through till the end, even when they would face loss. How easy or difficult was it to implement this system and how did it go about influencing combat and story-telling?

Alex Thomas: Making all of your choices matter was probably the hardest thing I had to do as a designer and writer. We designed a game from the ground-up based on making choices, not the other way around. Each system had to have hooks that we could manipulate through the choices you make so that they have weight. We had to have a cast of characters large enough that you could lose allies without making the game unplayable.

We had to have compelling stories for upwards of 30 individuals, and they had to be unique and fun in combat, too. The number of things we juggled to make this game work was pretty overwhelming at times. What a lot of people don’t realize is that the more complex your story and the choices, the more simple the game itself needs to be. When you look at older games and wonder how they managed to have compelling gameplay that seems to elude modern games, it’s because they didn’t require 3D art, voice acting, complex animation or massive amounts of cinematics.

"We're addressing this first and foremost in the sequel: characters will have more abilities available to them in combat, there will be new classes, and battles will have more objectives with different goals."

Ravi Sinha: Another interesting aspect of The Banner Saga has been the character conversations. Needless to say, they’re cinematic and highly unorthodox. How did the idea come about, especially with regards to making them somewhat 2D?

Alex Thomas: The conversation system was a total shot in the dark for us. There are tons of games that have static portraits talking to each other, but they’re usually an abstraction; take Fire Emblem’s conversations, for example. I don’t know of any that have used our particular system.

I got the idea that you could do a more personal conversation system when I was working on the cinematics team at BioWare where we did a lot of conversation with simple over-the-shoulder cameras. Because of restrictions we had on that game we could only use static cameras, so I became really familiar with making a conversation work with limited angles. Using the same portraits we created for our character screens, we were able to get the most out of that art. In this case since we knew there would be a lot of dialogue in the game we tried to make the most immersive approach we could with limited resources.

Ravi Sinha: Some publications have criticized the lack of variety in combat. What are your thoughts on this?

Alex Thomas: It’s a valid complaint! We’ve had plans for more varieties of combat and we didn’t have time to implement them, opting instead to really fine-tune what we did have, which is well-balanced last-man-standing combat. We’re addressing this first and foremost in the sequel: characters will have more abilities available to them in combat, there will be new classes, and battles will have more objectives with different goals.

On this note, though, it’s always interesting to me is that reviewers see things differently from normal players. If you take your time and play the game for a couple hours a day it feels pretty good. If you’re forced to sit down and finish the whole thing in one 10-hour session because you’re on a deadline, yeah, I can see how it would feel a little repetitive.

Ravi Sinha: Bonus question: Now that the game has successfully launched what is everyone from the development team up to?  A much needed break I suppose!

Alex Thomas: A break, indeed! We just got back from a couple weeks vacation and after attending GDC in San Francisco we’ll be back on to production, working on the sequel. The great thing is that I don’t think we’ll ever need to do 15 hours day again, and by remaining a three-person team we can keep things nice and casual without having to worry about the problems that come with running a large studio, and we stay completely independent. We’ve already been able to pay off all our debts and fund the entire sequel, so we couldn’t ask for much more than that.

Almost certainly the first thing that will strike you about the video game when you start it up will be its bleak atmosphere, impressed upon you in no small part by the game’s gorgeous visuals. The game’s hand drawn art looks stunning, and recalls classic era Disney movies. It’s a sight to behold, and The Banner Saga looks like a cartoon in motion, one that you have full control over. The gorgeous backdrops, with the snow clad mountains, and distant settlements, provide the setting for the bleak storyline that unfolds within the twelve or so hour long adventure, and the characters are all distinct, with a unique design, their own special animations, and a general look that makes each of them stand out in your memory.

"One thing that's so well great about this game is in its effortless approach to level design. Although it might be very simple, each level is set-up in a way that's totally designed to screw you over and challenge the unchallengeable.The beautiful visuals and haunting music come together in conjunction with some incredible writing to provide an intensely strong storytelling experience."

The beautiful graphics are further complemented by the game’s brooding, subdued music. Scored by Austin Wintory, of Journey fame, the music is moody yet it has crests of swelling optimism, grandiose, and yet brooding, laced with ominous undercurrents that keep the player on edge constantly- even if it’s been a while since the last tragedy, and things have largely been going okay, the music will convince you that something awful is about to happen, that it’s right around the corner.

The beautiful visuals and haunting music come together in conjunction with some incredible writing to provide an intensely strong storytelling experience- The Banner Saga tells the story of a world where the giant Varl and humans have formed an uneasy alliance, especially in the face of the rise of the Dredge, dark, hulking enemies that have arisen in the anarchy.

The storytelling is tight, and the story itself is a dark, unflinchingly bleak tale, of alliances and betrayals, political motives and intrigue- the beautiful cartoony visuals belie just how dark the story really can get, as, almost as if it were taking a page out of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, it pulls the rug out from under you repeatedly, shocking you with its audacity and its willingness to go where you would not expect it go, killing off promising characters that it knows you have grown attached to, and proceeding with developments that can make you blanch.

Such reactions to the game’s storytelling are based entirely in the fact that the game expertly invests you in its characters and in the larger plotline itself, to the point where you feel like you have a stake in how it all turns out. It accomplishes this feat using a two pronged strategy- first, its characterization is great, and you come to like certain characters, and dislike others, and you feel strongly about all of them. So when one you like turns out to be dead, or a traitor, you genuinely feel punched in the gut.

"Choice making in this game is entirely organic, and unlike other games, there are no 'critical moments' which determine how the story will play out- as a matter of fact, it has been impossible for me to nail down which of my choices made my story play out the way it did, and I'm tempted to say that it was the cumulative sum of everything I did that affected my story."

Arguably its stronger, most effective technique of involving the player in its storytelling, though, is in how it incorporates the choice and consequence dynamic. Many, many games offer lip service to the ideal of giving the player ‘choice’ and control over how it all turns out, I haven’t seen games that do it like The Banner Saga very often. Choice making in this game is entirely organic, and unlike other games, there are no ‘critical moments’ which determine how the story will play out- as a matter of fact, it has been impossible for me to nail down which of my choices made my story play out the way it did, and I’m tempted to say that it was the cumulative sum of everything I did that affected my story.

You see, the game changes dramatically based on what choices you make- some of them, especially the ones in the beginning, start out simple enough (do you think someone suspected of murder was actually the culprit?), but they begin to get more and more complex, and soon, there really is no clear cut right or wrong option, and the only thing you have to guide you is your own instinct, which can often be misplaced.

All of this leads to a harrowing story over which you have control, and for which you must take full responsibility- if something awful does happen, it’s all on you and the chocies you made. It’s empowering and g both at once, and, as mentioned above, gives you a real stake in the story and how it all plays out.

However, regardless of all of that (or perhaps because of it), the player is bound to get disappointed by the end- the story is never less than great, don’t get me wrong, but by the end, it begins to buckle under the weight of its own ambitions, and gets increasingly denser and harder to follow, with specific plot points either being ignored entirely or getting unsatisfactory resolutions. Meanwhile, the ending itself is rather abrupt, almost Halo 2-esque, in how it just seems to stop a story that seemed well under way and no where near its end dead in its tracks. To be fair, the game is the first in a planned trilogy, so we know there is more to come, narratively speaking, but it does diminish the value of this specific game as a standalone product.

"Willpower is a limited 'resource' stat that lets your character deal more damage and move farther than they ordinarily would, and it can only be regenerated by having your character waste away a turn by 'resting' in the middle of the battle."

The game also takes a leaf out of Advance Wars’ book by tying the amount of damage you can do to your health (the stat is collectively called Strength)- if you’re down to 1HP, you’re not exactly going to be able to do a lot of damage. The game also separates your armor stat from your health, and armor must be destroyed or weakened separately to allow for more damage to be dealt (alternatively, you could just ignore the armor and chip away at the opponent’s health in small chunks).

All limitations on your characters- their movement range, the damage they can deal- can be overcome to an extent with another stat called Willpower. Willpower is a limited ‘resource’ stat that lets your character deal more damage and move farther than they ordinarily would, and it can only be regenerated by having your character waste away a turn by ‘resting’ in the middle of the battle. Saving up your willpower to enhancing an attack near the end of the battle that can tip things your way might be a good idea- until you realize that you might not even get to the end of the battle unless you use your willpower to get out of a sticky spot now.

"Ultimately, it is very hard not to recommend The Banner Saga. It's beautiful game telling a hell of a story, one that involves the player in both its narrative and its mechanics by virtue of the strength of both, its story and its gameplay."

All told, the usual complexities of a turn based strategy game are all present here, with some new wrinkles thrown into the mix. All of this complexity is further enhanced by how the battles interact with the non battle parts of the game, the resource management part of the game- as you are traveling on your journey, you need to watch your supplies or you start losing members of your convoy, to hunger, death, starvation, or just them fleeing in search of better opportunities.

Supplies are bought using a stat called renown, which is gained by killing foes in battle- but that same resource is also used to promote your warriors and ensure that they are up to scratch. Allocating, dividing, and using your resources effectively is another crucial part of the game, and yet another thing that empowers the player with more agency than most games these days do.

Ultimately, it is very hard not to recommend The Banner Saga. It’s  beautiful game telling a hell of a story, one that involves the player in both its narrative and its mechanics by virtue of the strength of both, its story and its gameplay. It’s addictive, and, owing to the variability of its plot, infinitely replayable. With it being able to run on basically any medium to high end PC, you probably don’t even have any reason not to play it. If you have a PC or a Mac with Steam installed, you owe it to yourself to pick this title up and check it out.

This game was reviewed on PC.