The Banner Saga 2 Delayed

If you were hoping to spend the free time off during your holiday break chumming it up with giants and battling to save your people in the gorgeously grim Viking adventure, The Banner Saga 2, you'll have to wait until early 2016 to do so. The game has been delayed from its late 2015 release.

PC Gamer did a write-up about the delay, which was actually explained over on the official Banner Saga Facebook page. They explain that the game's delay has not been affected by the upcoming Kickstarter for the tabletop board game being made by MegaCon Games, but they did mention that the console port is coming along nicely, which some of you may have forgotten about...

The console ports of the Banner Saga are in full effect. We are currently wrapping up development for the first game now (in with 1st party submission). The delays in the console is mainly game development fun, but we have also spent time working on console specific controls to make it perform as a console game, more than just a port.Banner Saga 2’s development is progressing nicely. Customers who have attended Gamescom and PAX have seen its progress. We will update everyone on its launch date when the timing is right.

So Stoic Games have two separate projects they're wrapping up: the console port for the original Banner Saga, which was supposed to be out at the end of this year, but appears to be moved into 2016 along with the PC version of

[[ ah ref http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Banner-Saga-Wins-Over-Critics-It-Win-Over-Sales-61624.html ]] The Banner Saga 2.

We haven't heard much about the sequel, but Eurogamer did a fairly comprehensive write-up on some of the new features that will make the cut in the emotionally engrossing Viking adventure. They mention that Stoic has added new dialogue interactions into the combat, so players will get a bit more story and personalization between characters during the turn-based combat sequences.

Stoic has also added more more character skills for players to mess around with as they develop and grow their small army who is attempting to find a safe haven in The Banner Saga's dying world.

It's also mentioned that the game's art-style and cinematics will return. They don't expressly mention if the roto-scoping from the first game will be used again. I absolutely loved those sequences, even though they were pretty short. It's just something we don't see often enough anymore even though it's extremely taxing to do, very expensive and takes a long time to refine. I guess that kind of answers the question as to why we don't see roto-scoping anymore.

Anyway, the Kickstarted project The Banner Saga was one of those games that easily topped a lot of “Best Of” lists when it came out in 2014 and it's possible the sequel could do the same if Stoic Studios is able to maintain everything that made the first game fun while also evolving the concept and adding in enough new features to draw in returning and new fans alike.

Unfortunately there's hard date for The Banner Saga 2 but expect to learn more as 2016 approaches.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.