Moddable JRPG Edge Of Eternity launches into early access
Feathered hair, check. Huge glowy sword? Check. JRPG? Yep.
JRPGs seldom stray into the early access minefield, but Edge Of Eternity is doing a few things differently. Despite looking like a half-dozen famous JRPGs put into a blender until glossy (I'm getting hints of Xenoblade and The Last Remnant - tangy), it's being developed by a tiny nine-person crew called Midgar Studio. This initial release of the game is just the first act of the main story plus an integrated mod toolkit, with Midgar planning on releasing the game chapter by chapter and hoping to launch in 2020. Take a peek at the early access launch trailer below.
Some stiff animations aside, I can't deny that Edge of Eternity is a flashy looking game. It's amazing what small teams can achieve these days (another good example is Project Wingman), and Midgar Studio mention in their launch development blog that their crew was only four people until recently. The game was originally Kickstarted in 2015, but as nice as six digits sounds, $161,246 is just a drop in the ocean for a game of this scope, and some of that money has gone on hiring Xenoblade composer Yasunori Mitsuda. Mad ambition, but I'm impressed by what I've seen so far.
Midgar seem to have a solid plan worked out for the next half-year of development. Sometime in February they hope to roll out a second open world quest-hub, with another city to it. In the short term, they say they're working heavily on the UI, describing its current iteration as "imperfect". Constant bug-hunting is a given, but Midgar say they're aiming to roll out a major slab of new content every 3-4 months, expanding the world, adding new quest-lines, characters, etc. They reckon the current release will take around 8-12 hours to play through, but admit it's unpolished.
Edge Of Eternity is out now in early access and available via Steam for £13.94/€17.99/$17.99, although they plan to raise the price over time. It's published by Playdius.