Guild Ball studio announces ‘legacy miniature game’ Godtear

Guild Ball, Dark Souls and Resident Evil 2 studio Steamforged has announced its latest project, an ambitious-sounding ‘legacy miniature game’ called Godtear.

Godtear is said to be a narrative-driven game involving two teams of champions fighting to become gods.

There’s an ongoing story in the background of each encounter, with characters having distinct aspirations and being able to improve their stats and abilities over the course of the campaign.

Alongside the champions will be groups of smaller followers or minions of various strengths. Unlike Guild Ball’s teams, Godtear is described as being ‘faction-free’, allowing players to freely mix characters from the different high fantasy races and clans in a single team.

The game uses a stripped-back evolution of the rules seen in Guild Ball, employing a hex grid-based system rather than free-form movement for faster play.

Combat is resolved by rolling custom dice for hits and damage, with the game’s champions able to chain together attacks and abilities – for example, a minotaur might be able to whip another character to the edge of the board.

Victory points are gained by killing enemies and achieving objectives, including claiming Godtear hexes with flags, which can attacked by opponents before the end of the turn to reverse the points gain.

A standard Godtear match takes place on a 30- by 40-inch play area and features three champions on either side.

Steamforged has said that the game will launch with a two-player starter set that provides two champions for each team to be used on a half-size board – you’ll need to pick up two copies for a full match.

Although Godtear is described as being a ‘legacy miniature game’, it’s unclear what or how legacy-style mechanics – such as those seen in another grid-based battler, Gloomhaven – will play into the gameplay and story.

We’ll almost certainly find out more at the beginning of next year, as Steamforged plans to launch the game through a limited Early Access programme on January 29th before bringing it to Kickstarter.