NOSTRA puts timed defensive actions and equipment customization into a turn-based, party-based JRPG.
It’s Runecraft Studios‘ debut project, developed by Gökhan Cirag with contributions from freelance artists and musicians. The game targets November 2027 on PC via Steam, and a free alpha demo is already available.
The adventure begins in a small village on an island continent shared by three kingdoms: Calum, Dorneval, and Vargheim.
Relations are already strained when mysterious portals appear, and previously safe roads become dangerous. Your journey takes you out of that village and into a conflict involving both the kingdoms and something much older.
Combat uses a side-view perspective, with several resources and defensive options to consider. Boost strengthens attacks and can break an enemy’s guard, while Ward protects against incoming hits. A correctly timed parry opens an immediate counterattack, adding a reflex-based element to the turn-based structure.
Powerful abilities also consume Runic Power, which does not regenerate automatically, so deciding when to spend it is part of managing a fight.
I’m particularly curious about how the class progression interacts with the equipment. You start as a knight, then choose between branching specializations with different weapons and fighting styles. Loot has randomly rolled properties, and the wider equipment system includes rarity levels, set bonuses, and sockets for gems and runes.
The world follows a day-and-night cycle, with changing weather, lighting, and villagers who follow daily routines.
Spatial audio and surface-specific footsteps are also part of the presentation. Steam’s disclosure notes that generative AI assists with some environmental, background, and store artwork, plus parts of the soundtrack, with those elements subsequently edited and curated by hand.
The alpha demo covers roughly two to three hours of the opening adventure, including Grünthal, the Woods of Alyria, and dungeon exploration.
It expands on the earlier gamescom build, with the developer’s roadmap listing additional dungeon content and adjustable parry difficulty among the changes. Content, balance, and text are still being developed, so this is an early look at NOSTRA’s systems ahead of its planned release. Below are the trailer and store-page details.
Nostra is an island continent, ringed by an ocean no ship has ever crossed and returned from. Three kingdoms stand on it. Calum holds the centre where three rivers meet, a realm of order, trade and parade-ground glory. Dorneval keeps the southern coast, where scholars argue in the shade and the blood sports fill the arenas. Vargheim holds the northern mountains, its warriors and its deep crystal mines. Each is proud, each is wary, and each is certain the other two will break the peace first.
Beneath the politics, something older has begun to stir. Portals open where no one built one. Roads that were safe for a generation are not safe now. The old peace is thinner than anyone wants to say out loud.
You begin far from all of it, in a village that has never mattered to anyone. Where the road takes you, and what you become on it, is yours to find out.
Every fight is decided by position, timing and what you are willing to spend. Build up Boost to turn a routine strike into the one that breaks a guard. Raise a Ward and take the hit on your terms. Parry on the frame and the counter is yours. Runic Power fuels the strikes that end fights, and it does not come back on its own.
Bandits on the road are one thing. What waits in the crypts under the old church is another, and it does not fight like anything the kingdoms trained their soldiers against.
Your knight is not a class you pick once. Specializations branch as you go, each with its own weapons, its own rhythm in a fight and its own way out of trouble. Gear drops with rolled properties and sockets, and the good pieces are worth rebuilding a whole approach around.
Day turns to night on its own clock. Lanterns come on, shutters close, and the roads empty. Weather rolls in across the land rather than switching on. Footsteps answer the ground you are walking on, and sound sits in the space around you instead of in front of you. Nostra reacts, down to details you are not meant to notice.
An original orchestral score, written for this world, from a single melody in an empty village to the themes that carry a boss to the end of its last phase.
NOSTRA is the first game from Runecraft Studios, built by one developer with a small circle of freelance artists and musicians. It is only beginning: new regions, new stories and new mysteries arrive as the world grows.
