valentine71
Banned
Torment: Tides of Numenera is the thematic successor to Planescape: Torment, one of the most critically acclaimed role-playing games of all time. Immerse yourself in a single-player, isometric, story-driven RPG set in Monte Cook's Numenera universe. What does one life matter? Find your answer.
DEVELOPER: inXile Entertainment
PUBLISHER: Techland Publishing
PLATFORMS: PC & MAC & LINUX & PS4 & XBONE
RELEASE DATE: February. 28th, 2017
AUDIO: English
SUBTITLES: English, French, German, Polish, Russian, Spanish
Explore Earth one billion years in the future in the science-fantasy setting of Numenera. Discover the Ninth World built on the bones of extinct, hyper-advanced civilizations and leave your own mark on it. Make thousands of essential choices, face the consequences, and meet death incarnated as you seek the answer to the ultimate question: What does one life matter?
The protagonist of the story, known as the Last Castoff, is the final vessel for the consciousness of an ancient man, who managed to find a way to leave his physical body and be reborn in a new one, thus achieving a kind of immortality by means of the relics. Unknown to him, however, every time he abandoned – or "cast off" – these host bodies, they awoke with a consciousness of their own, having no memory of their former master or his deeds. The actions of this man, known as the Changing God to some, attracted the enmity of "The Sorrow" (renamed from "The Angel of Entropy" to reduce the potential to imply a religious role), who now seeks to destroy him and his creations. The Last Castoff, being one such "creation", is also targeted by the Sorrow, and must find their master before both are undone. To do so, the protagonist must explore the Ninth World, discovering other castoffs, making friends and enemies along the way. One means of such exploration are the "Meres" – artifacts that let their user gain control over the lives of other castoffs, and experience different worlds or dimensions through them. Through these travels the Last Castoff will leave their mark on the world – their Legacy – and will find an answer to the fundamental question of the story: What does one life matter?
The Ninth World is Earth, one billion years in the future. Many great and powerful civilizations have arisen and disappeared in that time, not all of them human. The powers of these civilizations beggar description. Among them were civilizations that mastered space and time, people who could halt the death of the sun or shape the continents as they wished, or beings who could shape life itself to suit their needs and whims. Their abilities are far beyond ours; even if our civilization were to survive another 10,000 years, we would barely have begun to accumulate the strength and knowledge that could place us in the histories of what Ninth Worlders call the ”prior worlds".
The prior worlds are gone now; they died out, transcended, or otherwise moved on. The present world is called the Ninth World, not because there were eight worlds before it, but just because that is what they have called themselves. The Ninth World is exceedingly young—not even 1,000 years in recorded history.
There are no records of the prior worlds, who they were, or what happened to them. All that remains is the detritus they left behind in vast profusion: crumbling ruins, floating monoliths, the descendants of their engineered or imported creatures. Abandoned clouds of nanites wander the scrublands, horrifically twisting whatever they come across according to some warped, unknowable design. Automaton soldiers march across desolated fields, fighting a war that no one remembers or could even understand. The Earth itself is surrounded by the datasphere: an invisible network that constantly transmits information across the globe to some unknown purpose, but that the very clever (or very lucky) can sometimes tap into for their own purposes.
The people of the Ninth World call all these things, collectively, the numenera. Some Ninth Worlders scavenge the ruins of the prior worlds, seeking ancient artifacts and relics to sell or use. Others harness power from invisible energies left in the very air and soil. The numenera are equally a source of aid and horror, ineffable and inexplicable.
Certain scholars of the Ninth World have studied the pull of forces they call The Tides; unseen powers that have profound and lasting effects for those attuned to their motions. Like gravity or magnetism, the Tides are invisible, powerful, and, with the right tools, perhaps even controllable. Those who manipulate them can have a strong influence on society, the numenera, and the mysterious creatures of the world. Does everyone know of the Tides? Not at all. In fact, knowledge of the Tides is generally limited to a select few.
The understanding of these forces is incomplete and difficult to grasp; the Tides represent concepts that are not entirely definable by language. Those who acknowledge them have given them symbolic colors based on how they appear to correspond with emotional and psychological reactions. The colors are important because a word like justice (for example) is too simplistic. The Indigo Tide represents justice and fairness, but it might also mean a desire for the greater good or an end justifies the means mentality. The Gold Tide can represent false philanthropy as well as martyrdom. It's the actions that matter, not the motivations.
In the game, the Tides serve as a kind of alignment system; but a more nuanced system, and one that does not judge actions based on whether they're good or evil. You'll learn more about the Tides as you explore Torment. And the Tides will gradually change based on your actions and decisions, ultimately determining your Legacy.
Set in a far, far distant future, the Numenera RPG puts a new spin on traditional fantasy, creating something unique to reinvigorate the imagination of gamers everywhere. Player characters explore a world of mystery and danger to find leftover artifacts of the past: bits of nanotechnology, the datasphere threaded among still-orbiting satellites, bio-engineered creatures, and myriad strange and wondrous devices that defy understanding. Numenera is about discovering the wonders of the worlds that came before, not for their own sake, but as the means to improve the present and build a future.
Edge -
8
COMING SOON!
Official Website
inXile Entertainment
Metacritic
Torment: Tides of Numenera on Steam
Special Thanks to:
- Inxile for making the special thread banner for GAF.
- Mister_Bubbles for various banners and headers.
