Many of you will probably already be familiar with indie studio FOR-GAMES CR (the makers of the stylish deckbuilder The Hero Quest: Deathless). They’ve just announced their next project a couple of hours ago, a fairly interesting blend of turn-based combat and a quite expanded strategy layer.
It’s called Luminere: Final Light, and I think there are a number of interesting ideas in there worth looking at a bit more closely. So here’s a summary of what we currently know.
The sun and the moon are both dark, and a force known as the Gloom is consuming the land and turning the population into monsters. Shelter is to be found at Luminere, an ancient monument whose light can keep the Gloom at bay. You play as Corvus, gathering a party and trekking through the ruins in search of survivors and to investigate the disaster.
The art gives that premise a very fairy tale feel. The early screenshots show a green settlement all clustered around a rather imposing, glowing monument.
The battles take place across a very misty landscape with all sorts of skeletal and monstrous enemies. The spells are bright and pop against the rather drab environment, and the illustrated characters give the combat a very storybook look.
Party Tactics With a Raven Overhead
Combat is all about party composition and coordination. That makes the choice of who you send with Corvus part of your responsibilities. The devs are very clear about how the various companions’ skills complement each other.
Corvus also has a rather unusual role in these situations. In raven form, he’ll be using his own magic to support the party, as a supplement to the abilities of the other members. Further into the Gloom, you come across powerful monsters which are in turn connected to mysterious Gates.
Building and Defending a Place to Call Home
Expeditions consist of picking a route across the map and then searching for resources, artifacts, and the survivors who have made it beyond the light. The resources you find in the course of the expedition are then used at the refuge to build and improve buildings as the surrounding ruins slowly turn into a settlement.
Restoring Luminere expands the area of light that it covers, while raids require you to defend your home. That gives the settlement a real role in the conflict as you’re effectively growing the area that can support survivors and then protecting the refuge that you’ve worked so hard to establish.
Companions and Consequential Choices
Each companion has their own backstory, their own personality, and their own skill set. The gear and artifacts provide a range of options for character builds, giving you another way of determining what a hero brings to the expedition.
The list has two aspects to its appeal really: the discovery of who these people are and then finding a useful slot for them in your party.
Dialogue and choice options will affect the relationships you form and the way the individual stories unfold. Corvus’s choices will also have an impact on the fates of the people you meet en route, giving the encounters with survivors a narrative purpose as much as the search for supplies.
The bigger story also leaves you with the option of how to deal with the catastrophe. You could go the route of restoring Luminere’s power; you could go the route of finding the creature that created the Gloom and deciding what to do with it. Those are the choices and they have consequences for the world as well as for the people you meet along the way.
Developed and published by FOR-GAMES CR LTD, Luminere: Final Light is set for 2027 on PC via Steam. Check out the announcement trailer below.
