A small studio from Barcelona wants to publish a new role-playing game called Starfinder: Afterlight on Steam. The release is still in the distant future, but there are already promising details. As the first medium in Germany, MeinMMO got an exclusive look at the two new companions that Starfinder: Afterlight introduces. The developers also explain how their game stands out from the competition.
What kind of game is this?
- In Starfinder: Afterlight, you play as the leader of a ragtag group of misfits trying to prevent the impending apocalypse. The game is a classic cRPG with an isometric perspective, turn-based combat, and a lot of story as a pure single-player experience.
- Starfinder: Afterlight uses the Starfinder license, a sci-fi variant of the much more well-known Pathfinder, one of the biggest alternatives to Dungeons & Dragons.
- The role-playing game places great emphasis on its 6 companions and their stories. The developers are convinced: companions make the game come alive. We have seen the two newest ones exclusively in advance.
Here are the two new companions: The human Borai Sterling (who is somewhat inspired by Archer, for all you niche nerds) and the android Lu-323 complement the first two characters introduced, Tycho and Kole.
Sterling is an agent who was murdered. However, because he clings too much to life, he returned as an undead – a Borai. His class is a kind of space wizard, a solarian, who uses the powers of creation and destruction. In Sterling’s story, the goal is to solve his own murder… which he himself is not that keen on.
Lu-323 was programmed to infiltrate and execute. An assassin and killer, who as an android wants to find out where her programming ends and she herself begins. In gameplay, Lu is a charismatic envoy who can use charm and deception just as well as a quick knife to the ribs.
Companions make the world come alive
In a conversation, the developers Ricard Pillosu and Albert Jane Goset explain to me what makes the two new companions special and what happens in their stories. I don’t want to spoil too much, but with Sterling and Lu you will dive deeper into the questions of life, exploring who one really is.
Decisions play a big role in Starfinder: Afterlight, allowing you to influence how your companions develop. Depending on how you behave, you improve or worsen your relationship with your companions – to the point where it can happen that they become your enemies and fight against you.
Using Lu as an example, the developers explain to me: Depending on how you, as a player, feel about her, it will be possible for her to adopt more of her “android” or more of her “human” side. So you have a direct influence on her fate.
Relationships can go so far that you can have a romance with the companions. With each of them, as the developers explain to me, regardless of your chosen gender or your own species. Because… there are also space shrimp with tentacles as a playable race: “If it’s not weird, it’s not Starfinder.”
Astarion aims to make Starfinder outstanding: “We can’t do this without you”
To bring the characters to life and convey emotions, Starfinder: Afterlight relies heavily on voice acting. All characters are voiced, and there are “banter”, conversations between companions during journeys that often refer to the environment.
To make everything sound natural, the developers work with Neil Newbon, the voice of Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3. Newbon is the voice director for the game, responsible for ensuring the spoken lines fit together:
He handles the whole casting, he directs the voices. Every session goes through him. He goes through all the lines, organizes them, takes the actor and brings him into the right mindset to deliver the lines. […] We also encourage a lot of improvisation. […]
The focus on voice acting should help Starfinder: Afterlight prove itself in the cRPG genre. Goset explains: Fans already know what to expect from such a game, so something special must be offered. Lively characters with deep stories should be exactly that special trait. By the way, well-known voice actors have been hired for this:
- The already known characters Tycho and Kole are voiced by Inel Tomilson (Space Marine 2, Final Fantasy XVI) and Fred Tatasciore (best known as Kil’jaeden from WoW and Soldier: 76 from Overwatch).
- Lu-323 is voiced by Melissa Médina, whom you know as Lettie in Warframe: 1999, Zanuhali from Final Fantasy XIV, or Callis from Borderlands 4.
- James Alexander lends his voice to Sterling. Alexander also voices various NPCs in Baldur’s Gate 3, Jake the Hyena from The Division 2, and Rick from Dying Light: The Beast.
Starfinder: Afterlight comes from people who know what they want
Epictellers, the studio behind Starfinder: Afterlight, is based in Barcelona and was founded only 2 years ago. However, the developers have over 20 years of experience, having previously worked at Crytek in Germany on Crysis and Ryse: Son of Rome.
After such a long time in the AAA sector, they explain to me that they saw the chance to pursue their passion for cRPGs – especially since Larian and Owlcat have done such a good job in re-establishing the genre.
Afterlight can be supported starting October 7 on Kickstarter.
The game is currently still in pre-alpha but is expected to be made available to players as early access as soon as possible. From then on, it should take about one to one and a half years to finish the game. The idea is to follow the same path that helped Baldur’s Gate 3 achieve success: Baldur’s Gate 3 is so good now because the devs did something that many find terrible
