If you're expecting this in-engine trailer for The Bard's Tale 4 to star a lecherous, wisecracking adventurer, you may not be its target audience. The video explores a fantastic world of mysterious forests, dark caves, and villainous monsters from a first-person perspective, all built as a successor to the influential RPG series of the 1980s... not the bawdy 2004 action adventure game.
The first-person dungeon crawling genre isn't quite dead, thanks to relatively recent games like Legend of Grimrock, but it's gone a bit quiet. Bard's Tale 4 is meant to both honor and advance the old RPG staple, adding new The Room-influenced puzzles to its familiar perspective, customizable party members who more deeply impact on the story, and a "phase-based" combat system that lets you enjoy fancy attack animations (without waiting hours for them to finish).
Series writer Brian Fargo is leading inXile's work on Bard's Tale 4. You may remember the team's previous runaway success in Kickstarting Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera - seems they've still got it, since they've already raised nearly $950,000 of their $1,250,000 crowdfunding goal with 36 days to go.
You'll need to pledge at least $25 (about £16.30) to get a copy for PC. Or you could kick in $5 / £3.25 more for the "Guilt Absolution" edition, which comes with a letter from Brian Fargo officially forgiving you for pirating his old games. It's redemption made easy!
