Disciples: Liberation aims to kick-start a new beginning for the strategic role-playing franchise which has remained dormant for more than a decade. With the genre seeing significant changes since then, developer Frima Studio had to make sure that the dark fantasy world of Nevendaar went through a necessary evolution to keep up with modern-day requirements and expectations.
Speaking with SegmentNext in a recent interview, Florian Treppke, senior producer of the Disciples franchise at publisher Kalypso Media, stated that Disciples: Liberation was “created from the ground up to work extremely well” across both generations of consoles and PC.
“We took a lot of care making the interface work especially well and accessible for controllers,” said Treppke, an achievement on the part of UX director Jean Francois Nadeau. “People will be surprised by how well it plays with a game pad.”
Compared to past installments in the franchise, Disciples: Liberation has received an advanced tooltips system that “makes it very easy for players to gain a deeper understanding of all functions of the game.” Frima Studio had to furthermore make sure that the button mapping was in line with other games of the genre as well which Treppke said “is a centerpiece for usability.”
These however are not the only enhancements to note. Disciples: Liberation will make use of the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X hardware by running at a glorious 4K resolution with higher quality textures, better anti-aliasing, and support for high dynamic range display.
There will also be other similar graphical options but one common graphical feat across all platforms will be the visual effects. “We have very impressive elements for all units, companions and spells!” exclaimed Treppke for even the old PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles.
Disciples: Liberation will be releasing around the 2021 holiday season on both previous- and current-generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles alongside PC. Frima Studio is already hosting a closed alpha testing while an open beta preview event will be taking place in summer.
