So the spiritual successor to the acclaimed Planescape: Torment is very much a real thing, but it’s only now we have a name and a website to attach to the once unidentified concept.
The new game is called Torment: Tides of Numenera; I’m glad inXile didn’t run into any issues with the “Torment” name. I was mildly concerned that Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast would find some way to ruin it for all of us, but thankfully that looks like it isn’t the case.
My only gripe is that “Numenera” doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well as “Planescape”, but then, I’m sure we’ll be referring to the game as simply Torment in the years to come. The reason for the “Numenera” tag? The game is based in the role-playing setting of the same name, created by game designer Monte Cook, formerly the lead on the upcoming 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
If you’re keen for more details, there are some tidbits on the about page:
Numenera’s Ninth World is a fantastic vision of a world in which massive civilizations have risen and fallen – disappeared, transcended, overwhelmed, or destroyed – and left their cities, monuments, and artifacts behind. As each rose and fell, their achievements became part of the accumulated detritus of eons… but much of it did not decay. And now this assortment of ancient power is there for the taking, ever-present, underfoot. The humans of the Ninth World take and use what they can. They call these wonders (and horrors) the numenera.
One of these humans discovers a way to use the numenera to grow strong, to cheat death, to skip across the face of centuries in a succession of bodies. But he discovers an unexpected side effect: You.
Torment™ is a game of complex and nuanced morality, deep and reactive choice and consequence, and immersion into a new and strange vision. You will chart a course through bizarre dimensions, across the face of a vastly different world. You will earn companions along the way, and discover their value – perhaps through their strengths, perhaps more literally by selling them. Throughout it all, you will choose a path that will lead inexorably to an ending that stems naturally from your actions, facing adversaries who harness powers beyond your comprehension, and who will ultimately force you to face yourself and answer the question: What does one life matter?
Sounds like it has all the right ingredients to be a Planescape: Torment successor.
Torment: Tides of Numenera [Official site]
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