Epoch: Returns from former Bioware developers taking to Kickstarter soon

By Stephany Nunneley

Nathan Moller, a former cinematic designer at BioWare who worked on Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins and Star Wars: The Old Republic, is launching a Kickstarter for his company’s new project Epoch: Returns.

Speaking with Eurogamer, Moller explained Innate Games’ premise behind Epoch: Returns, which features a husband and wife team of “interstellar treasure hunters,” who have crashed on an asteroid. While the wife works to repair the ship, her husband needs to explore the area to find parts needed.

“Married couples in games are very rare, and even when they are there they’re usually background, or one of them has been kidnapped or one of them has been murdered and revenge is sought,” said Moller. “We’re building a real couple. It hasn’t really been done much in games, at least not in any of the games I’ve played.”

Moller also said the game will take a page out of Mass Effect by allowing players to explore, but instead of landing on a the asteroid driving around like you would in Mass Effect, players will be walking around taking large leaps due to the asteroid’s gravity.

“We’re giving you this jagged, ruined world and we’re gonna make it fun for you to take off in any direction you want and just explore it and jump around and bounce off the walls,” he said. “The challenge won’t be in, ‘Can I get over that hill?’ It’s more like, ‘OK what’s the fastest way over that hill?’ Like, slide this slope, pick up momentum, bounce off this other cliff face, bounce off of that up over the hill.

“We’re not going to hold your hand, telling you what to do. We’ll give you little hints, but it’s up to you to go out in this world and explore it.”

While there won’t be any combat in the game, there will be plenty of dangers: solar flares, other asteroids, other stranded ships and more.

Cookie Hiponia Everman, editor of BioWare’s writing department, will is penning the story and it’s already in pre-production with the game’s size and release platforms other than PC will depend on how much funding is acquired through Kickstarter.

Epoch: Returns is slated for a Q1 2015 release.