Japanese developer Rabbit & Bear Studios, together with 505 Games, will release the role-playing video game Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes on April 23. The project will be the spiritual successor to 1995's Suikoden. Yoshitaki Murayama, who once worked on Suikoden, supervised the creation process at all stages. Despite the kinship between Eiyuden Chronicles and Suikoden, the studio did not try to make the new game as similar to the classic as possible. The new product is significantly different in design and unique gameplay elements. Other details of the release are in the Izvestia article.
Successor development
The development of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes was led by Yoshitaka Murayama, creator of the Suikoden video game series. He was the author of the first and second parts of the role-playing game. However, on February 6, 2024, the game designer died at the age of 55 due to a long-standing illness. At the same time, the man managed to finish the script for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes – the studio did not finalize anything. After more than three years of work, the game will be released on April 23, 2024 and will be the last project for Murayama.
Before production began, Eiyuden Chronicle was crowdfunded through the Kickstarter platform. The campaign exceeded all of the developers' early ambitious goals after exceeding $500,000 within a few hours on July 27, 2020. The total amount raised was more than $4.5 million, and 43 thousand people took part. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes was the number one funded game on Kickstarter in 2020. With overwhelming support for gamers, the prequel Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising was released in 2022. The project was first presented during the presentation of Microsoft and Bethesda at E3 2021. The release was originally planned for October 2022, but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Setting and combat system
The game takes place in the world of Allraan, at a time when the Galdean Empire has surpassed other nations, discovered the technology to enhance the magic of runic lenses and is now looking for an artifact that will increase its power even more. The history of the population was shaped by the opposition of alliances between humans and elves, desert dwellers and anthropomorphic beasts.
During one of the expeditions to find an artifact, a meeting occurs between a young imperial officer, Sein Kesling, and a boy from a remote village named Nova. The boy used to live in a League of Nations settlement until he was recruited by the Watch, a militia group. Sein Kesling is a member of the powerful imperial family, whose older brother died on the battlefield.
The combat system is turn-based battles, and the structure of guilds affects the characteristics of the heroes. In Hundred Heroes, the auto-combat feature played a crucial role, allowing the main characters to act independently of the user thanks to pre-set instructions. The mechanics are similar to Final Fantasy 12, where you could set a strategy for the entire group.
Each character has individual characteristics and abilities. The developers introduced gamers to some of them even before release.
— Marisa is a 16-year-old girl, part of the Guardian clan that protects the forest. They respect the culture and technology of the outside world;
— Lian — was born into a family of martial artists, her father trained her from a young age. Joined the Watch two days before Nova;
— Garr is a man-beast, a member of a cruel clan whose members are mercenaries. After the conflict begins, each side wants to recruit as many anthropomorphic animals as possible;
— Melridge is a young scientist, 27 years old, specializing in natural history;
— Mio is a swordswoman with a stoic character, rather silent;
— Cassandra is an elf who runs a hotel.
As the name of the title suggests, the game will have more than 100 heroes, gamers will get to know each of them during the course of the game. The placement of characters and their roles will affect the gameplay. Users are encouraged to explore different styles as there is no perfect approach, the strategy extends to opponents as well.
System requirements
The game is released on the global market with the support of the publishing house 505 Games. Eiyuden Chronicles has a Russian-language interface and subtitles; voice acting is currently announced only in English and Japanese. To install the action on a personal computer, you will need at least 22 GB of disk space; recommended system requirements include:
— OS: Windows 10;
— processor: AMD Ryzen 5 1700 or Intel Core i7-4770S;
— RAM: 6 GB;
— video card: Radeon RX 470 (4GB VRAM) or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB VRAM.
The role-playing game is multi-platform and will appear on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Beta testing for Eiyuden Chronicles and Suikoden began on March 14, 2024, and was only available to backers of the Kickstarter campaign. The developers asked fans not to stream the beta by posting notices on the Rabbit and Bear Studios website, as well as in newsletters sent out as part of project updates. The cost of the game on Steam for pre-order was 2869 rubles for the standard edition and 4584 rubles for the deluxe edition.
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