PAX East 2020 Hands-on: Project Witchstone

6 Mar 2020
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From Spearhead Games (Stories: The Path of Destinies and Omensight) comes a very early look at their next game, Project Witchstone, an RPG very much inspired by pen and paper games of yesteryear. This top down, turn-based RPG thrives on flexibility. The premise is well-worn: the continent that you find yourself on is rife with competing factions struggling for control, and you are an independent actor, able to make your own way. Since each NPC has their own personalities, desires, routines, and motivations, as the player, you can use that to your advantage, choosing to ally with some or double-cross others. For example, you can use stealth to sneak into a faction’s camp, pretend to form an alliance with the leader, assassinate him, and then plant evidence to point the finger at a neighboring faction. The choices are truly endless.

Combat is turn-based, with some minor real-time events leading to out-of-order turns or combinations. You can acquire the support of 3 NPCs to help you on your way, leading to more complex battle scenarios.

But the real concept here is flexibility. Flexibility in approach and in game play. There are 12+ classes, each with sub-specializations and skill trees. You can seek to restore peace to the land by conquering all factions, try to manipulate certain factions to do your bidding and take out another faction on their own, or try to get the NPCs and factions to accept peace terms. How long that will last, however, is anyone’s guess.

Project Witchstone is in active development now, but is planning on launching a Kickstarter campaign later this year with early access on Ssteam currently targeted for Q1 2021.