Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Published , by Ozzie Mejia
After spending years at BioWare working on games like Dragon Age and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, writer David Gaider has since formed a new studio to prepare a project unlike anything he has worked on before. The concept of a playable musical sounded preposterous on the surface, but Gaider is excited to prove the idea's viability with the upcoming Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. The game's cast came together on Wednesday evening to perform some of its songs, as well as announce an official August release date.
This is the most anyone has heard of Stray Gods since last year's Humble Games roadmap. Formerly known as Chorus: An Adventure Musical, Stray Gods follows the story of Grace, a young performer who finds herself the prime suspect in the murder of one of the Greek muses. However, Calliope does more than die in Grace's arms. She also leaves Grace her godly power, something that has not escaped the notice of the gods.
On the surface, Stray Gods plays similarly to other choice-based adventure games. The prime difference here is that it's a musical, so choices made in the middle of songs will change the music, lyrics, performances, and outcomes. Following the special presentation that aired on the Critical Role Twitch channel, Gaider held a Q&A with live attendees and noted that while individual song numbers are roughly four minutes each, about 25-30 minutes of audio had to be recorded to account for the different possibilities affected by player choice.
Stray Gods will be a star-studded affair. Among the lead performers are Laura Bailey (The Last of Us: Part 2, Marvel's Avengers) as Grace, Troy Baker (The Last of Us series, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, BioShock Infinite) as Apollo, Janina Gavankar (Star Wars Battlefront 2) as Freddie, and Ashley Johnson (The Last of Us series) as Calliope. Austin Wintory, award-winning composer behind such hits as Journey and The Banner Saga series, is lending his talents as the game's Music Director.
The curtain is about to go up on Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. Look for it to release on Thursday, August 3 exclusively on PC.