After the Torment: Tides of Numenera beta was delayed past the end of last year, a forum post by inXile has finally fixed a date: January 21. Most of us will have to wait till January 26 when it appears on Early Access, however—the first wave of keys will only be going out to Kickstarter backers who pledged $75-plus. If that’s you, all the necessary instructions will be emailed along with the code.

The beta will start from the beginning of the game and last about 10 hours, incorporating the first major location, the ancient city of Sagus Cliffs. I’m always a bit perplexed by beta access to story-driven RPGs. Personally, I’d rather have the polished story in one heady dose than stumble through a buggy first chapter subject to change, but it’s workedbefore , so it’s clearly not a problem for everyone.

Torment might just hit its latest release window after all.

TRAILER:

Torment: Tides of Numenera will use the Unity engine to display the pre-rendered 2.5D isometric perspective environments. The tabletop ruleset of Monte Cook‘s Numenera will be adapted to serve as the game’s rule mechanic, and its Ninth World setting is where the events of Torment: Tides of Numenera will take place.The player will experience the game from the point of view of the Last Castoff, a human host that was once inhabited by a powerful being, but was suddenly abandoned without memory of prior events.

Torment: Tides of Numenera is the spiritual sequel to Planescape: Torment, set in the Numenera role-playing world rather than Wizards of the Coast’s venerable Dungeons and Dragons setting, Planescape.

Many of the original development team are back on board, including Chris Avellone, and in general old school RPG fans are pretty damn excited about it – especially after the success of Wasteland 2.

• developer:inXile Entertainment
• publisher:
• date of release:26.january 2016