Console releases for Matsuno's Unsung Story may be dictated by cross-platform play
Yasumi Matsuno's Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians features cross-platform online play, and that may affect which platforms it comes to. The tactics game from the Vagrant Story director is only confirmed for iOS and Android curently, but developer Playdek is definitely looking at other platforms, and their policies towards cross-platform play.
We asked Joel Goodman, CEO of tabletop studio Playdek, whether or not that could close off the game from certain platforms.
"It potentially could and it potentially couldn't," Goodman said. "We're not speaking [about] any secrets here, we know for some platforms that will be more feasible to do than on others. At that point, then, we'll have to look at it and say, well, what's the more important part here? Is it that we end up with a platform that has a pragmatic community, and we don't want to do that, or that it's well worth it because it's still a gaming community that we want to address and make sure that they get this product as well."
Asked if it was fair to say it sounded like he was talking about previous-gen and current-gen consoles, Goodman replied, "That would be fair." Well, then.
Playdek and Matsuno unveiled Unsung Story at last year's Tokyo Game Show, when it sounded like a lot of the game was still in germination. Goodman told us this week that the game's fantasy world of Rasfalia is much more fully envisioned now, and the studio has more of an understanding of its gameplay and modes.
As Goodman explained, Unsung Story features a "completely envisioned Matsuno world" that's focused around the "77 Years War," a central conflict between two major kingdoms. However, that fight extends to a much more fractured struggle between as many as "13 to 15" different nations and cultures, spread out across that history.
The game is split up into episodes across that timeline, some lasting a year, others as much as a decade, and players can tackle those episodes in whichever order they want. Each episode has central heroes who are key to that particular story, but the tactics gameplay focuses more on the everyday people of the war.
Playdek told us Matsuno is drawing inspiration from the major European wars of the 16th and 17th century, but also from the fractured nature of early Saxon Britain. It all sounds fascinating, but there's some way to go before we'll get to see and play the final version. Goodman confirmed the game's ETA is a "minimum of 2015," which seems fair when you consider it's the San Diego studio's "singularly biggest project" to date.
One thing that is due in 2014 is the first of two digital card games within the Unsung Story IP. Goodman said its progress is going well, with development at the coding stage now.
