Before we enter the Saltsea archipelago in the new narrative adventure from Die Gute Fabrik, studio lead Hannah Nicklin shows us a slide featuring the team working on the game – ranging from a writer who worked on Divinity: Original Sin to the author of an Arthur C Clarke Award-winning novella. It’s symbolic of the approach the studio is taking for its first release since 2019’s Mutazione. Though that game’s story was about a community, it was told through the eyes of one playable protagonist. “I was talking with Doug[las Wilson, studio co-founder] about it, and we were like: ‘Doesn’t the form belie the content slightly?’” Nicklin says. Saltsea Chronicles feels like an attempt to address that imbalance: just as the narrative team has expanded from Nicklin alone to a full writers’ room, this is a world you experience as an ensemble – and the cast grows as you explore.
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