A new contender in the PC Action-RPG market enters in the form of an adaptation of German tabletop RPG titan, The Dark Eye. The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes released today on Steam, aiming to remind players of the glory days playing classics like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights.
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Book of Heroes takes players to the world of Aventuria, the fantasy setting of the tabletop game originally released back in 1984. To do so players must make adventurers out of a selection of four races, twelve professions, and a variety of traits and skills.
From there, players will set out on an adventure across all Aventuria, crossing paths with locations and characters taken straight out of The Dark Eye‘s storied history since the series’ inception. Along the journey, players can either team up with up to three friends in online or local play, or can recruit NPC party members from a variety of pre-made characters with their own personalities and utilities.
The trailer shows combat one would expect from a game similar to this with turn-based attacks determined by stats and rolls with a good mixture of element-based magic mixed in, in case you want to be flashy. The game also promises various other genre standard features such as crafting, handfuls of quests, and plenty of dungeons and vistas all explored from an isometric perspective.
For those of you who have never heard of The Dark Eye, it is a tabletop role-playing game ala Dungeons & Dragons that is proudly the top tabletop RPG in Germany. The years since the game’s initial release have been filled with constant development, with the most recent fifth edition being released just in 2015, and has led to the setting of Aventuria being filled to the brim with depth and detail. If you have ever had any interest in the tabletop The Dark Eye experience, it is actually free right now here.
Only time will tell how The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes will stack up against the modern highlights of the genre like Divinity: Original Sin II and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. However, if you are a fan of the setting or Action RPGs in general, Book of Heroes looks like a good offering at its modest $29.99 price tag and is available on Steam.
