As such, just like in Planescape: Torment, you begin the game as an amnesiac immortal.Ĭastoffs and the Changing God have already had a massive impact on the Ninth World by the time you arrive as smoldering orbital discharge. Each time he "casts off" such a shell (every decade or so), that vessel wakes up as a new Castoff with a mind of its own.
One of the most obvious callbacks is your main character-"The Last Castoff” is the latest of many nigh-immortal bodies to be created and once inhabited by "the Changing God." Your sire has flitted from body to body for hundreds of years, running from some multi-universal nightmare called the Sorrow. That intention shows in the game, too, in ways both obvious and intentionally obscure. You could liken it to Baldur's Gate or even Diablo, but the game's name alone makes it clear that this is specifically a successor to Planescape: Torment, and it was even pitched as such in its 2013 Kickstarter campaign. Once Torment begins in earnest, the game assumes the look of any number of top-down RPGs from a bygone era. Nearly all of the sometimes slimy, often depressing, and always cerebral story that follows this explosive introduction is conveyed in words, not in images and sounds. Of course, you don't actually see any of this happen. A moon explodes over the game's setting (simply called “the Ninth World”), and your avatar comes hurtling out of it toward the ground. Torment: Tides of Numenera opens with a literal bang.
Platform: Windows (reviewed), Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PS4 Game details Developer: inXile Entertainment