Riot Games’ new label, Riot Forge, today announced new games Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, developed by Airship Syndicate, and CONV/RGENCE: A League of Legends Story, developed by Double Stallion Games, both set in the League of Legends (LoL) Universe.

Ruined King: A League of Legends Story is a story-driven, turn based role playing game (RPG) being developed by Airship Syndicate. Set after the events of Burning Tides, players will take control of LoL champions and explore the bustling city of Bilgewater and the mysterious Shadow Isles in a game for the first time. Featuring fan favourite champions, innovative turn-based combat, and beautiful art direction along with brand new surprises and plenty of poros, Ruined King: A League of Legends Story advances the stories of many champions in the LoL Universe and offers an exciting new way to experience the World of Runeterra.

Riot Forge’s Ruined King

“We’re excited to be working with Riot Forge for Ruined King: A League of Legends Story,” said Joe Madureira, CEO at Airship Syndicate. “We’ve always thought the events of Burning Tides created a rich opportunity for so many great stories, we’re thrilled by the opportunity to move the lore forward and bring Bilgewater and Shadow Isles to life like never before.”

CONV/RGENCE: A League of Legends Story, is a single player, action platformer game being developed by Double Stallion Games. Players will explore the spectacular world of Zaun as Ekko, a young inventor with an ingenious device to manipulate time. CONV/RGENCE: A League of Legends Story, will follow the journey of Ekko, a fan-favourite LoL Champion, as he discovers that the power to change time comes with many consequences.

Riot Forges’ Conv/gence

“Ekko is such a unique champion with an energetic personality that’s a joy to work with,” said Lee Thomas, Creative Director at Double Stallion Games. “We are immersing ourselves in the spectacular city of Zaun, which has such an interesting and rich culture with its juxtaposition to Piltover, and are looking forward to giving players a new way to experience the League of Legends Universe.”

“We are thrilled to announce our first two partnerships with Airship Syndicate and Double Stallion Games, who really understand how to bring their unique style to the League of Legends Universe and tell deep stories that players can immerse themselves in,” said Leanne Loombe, Head of Riot Forge.

“This is just the beginning, we have multiple games in development and are excited to get them out to players.”

For more information on Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, please go to Riot Forges’ official website.

For more information on CONV/RGENCE: A League of Legends Story, please go to the official website.

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 THQ Nordic and Airship Syndicate today unveiled the first top-down action adventure in Darksiders franchise history, Darksiders Genesis.

“Darksiders Genesis kicks off a completely fresh direction for the Darksiders franchise, including a new gameplay style, the introduction of STRIFE – the fourth and final horseman – and so much more,” said Joe Madureira, co-creator of Darksiders and CEO of Airship Syndicate. “The team at Airship is very eager to get Darksiders Genesis into the hands of fans at next week’s E3 show in Los Angeles!”

In Darksiders Genesis, the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse STRIFE is called upon to save humankind from certain destruction at the hands of Lucifer. True to its roots, Darksiders Genesis will feature intense combat, exploration, puzzle-solving, epic boss battles and serpent holes from heaven to hell. The game marks the first, full-scale Darksiders adventure played from the top-down perspective.

Scheduled for release on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Google Stadia later this year.

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Battle Chasers: Nightwar from Airship Syndicate after being released on PC, Mac, and consoles, will now be recreated for a mobile experience and will be released on Android and iOS .

The six heroes around fearless Gully who is on a quest to find her lost father will explore a vast world filled with dangerous enemies, hidden secrets and randomly generated dungeons. The heroes will get stronger with every defeated foe and every solved quest and gain access to powerful attacks, they can use in the turn-based encounters and boss fights. With quite demanding battles, it is up to the player to find the ideal selection of heroes that offers the best possible synergy and combat prowess.” Ancient War Golem Calibretto for example wrecks the enemies’ armor with his “Gut Punch” ability and Swordman Garrison’s “Rupture” strike will then cause a bleeding effect – using these synergies is key to victory.

“The idea of Battle Chasers: Nightwar on mobile devices is so exciting! It’s a perfect RPG for playing on the go, and anyone who doesn’t have access to a PC or console can also join in the adventure. I for one cannot wait!” Joe Madureira, CEO & Creative Director Airship Syndicate and creator of the Battle Chasers franchise

The randomly generated dungeons offer a high replay value and with three different difficulty levels, they will always be more challenging and more rewarding. Battle Chasers also has a deep hero progression system. Various combat- and dungeon abilities, different perks to customize each character individually and a wide range of equipment that is either found as loot or crafted, provides many options to form the team you want.

Release date is still to be confirmed.

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The RPG that combines dungeon crawling, turn-based combat, a rich story and a gorgeous JRPG-style – finally comes to Nintendo Switch on May 15th 2018!

Thanks to its successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2015, where 14,175 backers made the development possible, the team of Airship Syndicate were able to create a unique game that pays homage to the famous console greats.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar is an RPG inspired by the classic console greats, featuring deep dungeon diving, turn-based combat presented in a classic JRPG format, and a rich story driven by exploration of the world.

It features classic turn-based combat with a unique overcharge mana system and incredible Battle Bursts. Players can explore beautiful, randomly-generated dungeons loaded with traps, puzzles, secrets and loot and an overworld peppered with hidden dungeons, rare bosses and randomly appearing friends and foes.

Build your adventuring party by choosing three of six available heroes from the classic Battle Chasers comic series, each with unique abilities, perks, items and dungeon skills.

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What do you get when you mix a relatively unknown comic IP with classic JRPG fight styles, gorgeous cartoon art, and fun dungeon based mechanics? Battle Chasers: Nightwar is the answer, and now it has been released I can finally say, it’s kind of wonderful.

I wouldn’t blame you for having not heard of Battle Chasers before. It was a reasonably popular comic in the early 2000s, but I had never heard of it until I checked out a preview build earlier this year. This works in a weird way for the context of the game, as the excellent characters and world have already been built, but going into the game blind gives the feel of a new and unique IP.

After their airship is shot down by pirates, the misfit group of heroes find themselves scattered and in need to regroup. You start with Garrison, Gully and Calibretto who need to find and regather their team. After doing so they find themselves having to defeat the big bad wizard they come across. This is the general plot, and it’s a bit meh, but that’s not what makes the game special.

The plot is laced with the characters that make the game engaging.

Each of the characters are strange and unique, and thanks to surprisingly good voice acting, interesting. Though not all the lines are voice acted, presumably due to budget, they brought the characters to life, even when they were being a bit tropey. It is these character interactions that make this long game worth sitting through until the end.

The reason it’s worth playing until the end is due to its fantastic gameplay. There are basically three phases, the first of which is its world map. I wasn’t a fan of this because it is basically a series of paths with objects, including enemies. The restricted nature of this was tedious at times, but easily worth it for what comes at the end of each path, the Dungeons.

Dungeons start off giving you a difficulty option, and choosing higher difficulties will net you harder enemies, and better loot.

Dungeons involve walking around, working with puzzles to find secrets, and defeating, or running from enemy encounters. Each character has skills able to be used in a Dungeon outside of battle giving perks, such as healing, or knocking some health off an enemy before the encounter. The Dungeons can be long slogs so you need to ensure you‘re ready for the slog, and more importantly, make sure your abilities aren’t used too early.

The Dungeons, or the rest of the game, wouldn’t be nearly as interesting without the battle system which I fell in love with quickly.

It is based around a simple turn based JRPG format. Your characters on the left, the enemies on the right and a turn bar along the side letting you know how many turns you have until an enemy attacks. This is a super easy to approach combat system that early on gives a deceptively simple impression.

What the game then does is introduce you to more and more attacks, that have their pros and cons, which will make the difference in battle. Some take longer to charge, or sacrifice health, or do a small attack but give your characters buffs. Through this the game gets a lot of variety and depth, for when you want to use it.

The cherry on the top of the Battle Chasers’ cake, is the stunning art style.

The game kicks off with a cut scene that uses cells and cell shading to throw you into the story in style, and then it goes ahead and becomes more beautiful. Characters, enemies, backgrounds, and Dungeons are all wonderfully designed and animated, and a gem to look at throughout.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a wonderful example of what an indie dev can do with an established, albeit underground, IP. With solid and deep gameplay, stunning graphics and interesting characters, fans of turn-based RPGs would be doing themselves a disservice to miss this game.

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