Wii U eShop Exclusive 3Souls is Heading for an Episodic Release

Episode 1 to hit original Q2 window

by Thomas Whitehead Mon 11th Apr 2016

Early this year developer Red Column unveiled 3Souls as a Wii U eShop exclusive, an ambitious project that places the GamePad at the core of the gameplay. Targeting a Q2 release, it's now being restructured in order to achieve the best possible results.

It's becoming episodic, with 3Souls - Episode 1: Nelesa still coming in the Q2 window. This shift has been due to an expansion in the development team and to give more time to complete two subsequent parts for Summer releases - as the game's narrative follows three separate characters, the episodic approach does also make sense.

The studio's Arturo Chavez Maza is keen to emphasize that the game won't cost any more because of this structural change, however:

Bringing the game in an episodic format lets the player to start playing with it, for a much lower price, and the word of mouth will probably help us more than spoiling the game with more trailers, conserving the experience that we want to transmit the first time that the player plays.

Saying this, we can assure you that the final price of the first episode, plus the other two as Add-on Content, will be the same price that we had in mind when we wanted to launch it as one single game.

It's an intriguing title conceptually and may certainly be worth a punt. You can see a couple of trailers below.

Tom has been involved in the games industry for over a decade, mostly writing about it or struggling to sell Indie games. Loves reading, writing, hunting Capcom’s fiercest monsters and watching baseball.

1
NImH
Mon 11th Apr 2016

Yeah, it's gonna be a rough road for 3 Souls going the episodic route.
Bummer. I don't like seeing indie titles fail... Especially if they're good games that deserved recognition.

2
RainbowGazelle
Mon 11th Apr 2016

Looks like a neat game.

3
Morph
Mon 11th Apr 2016

So pay the price of a full game and only get a third of it and hope the developer honours their promise and gives you the other two thirds? Forgive me for being a bit sceptical, I'll wait for the complete version and then see if it's worth a purchase.

Also has an episodic release approach ever actually worked out well, I'm struggling to think of any on Nintendo machines, Strongbad maybe on wii, that's about it I think.

4
Clipse
Mon 11th Apr 2016

Hi everyone! I'm Arturo from Red Column.
Thanks Nintendo Life for the coverage!
Here I have a post where you can see updates about the game for those interested, where you can leave also critiques and suggestions ; )
https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/wiiu_eshop/3souls

About this new episodic format, I do understand the position that some people have about it. But we thought a lot about this and we still think that is gonna be the best for the game. If not we would have to delay for summer again.
But now, the people interested can play before, and get the other two episodes later on.

We also believe that this game will marketing much better with the word of mouth, because of his use of the Wii U GamePad, which is sometimes hard to show (we also dont like to do it, because it spoils the game experience). The first episode will cost then around a third of the total game, reaching much more people to know and speak about 3Souls.

But I understand your worries and fears with this format. For those who doesnt trust it that much, just imaging that is delay, and you can buy 3Souls on summer if you want ; )

@Morph sorry maybe for the confusion, but you missunderstood : ). Each episode will cost around a third of the total price if we had launched it in 1 piece (which we are not going to do now). So, the price is exactly the same in the end, and you play what you buy.
About the Nintendo cases with episodic format I am agree, but well, rules are not there without exceptions right? : ) We will work really hard to be one of them!

Thanks everyone for your comments and let us know your concerns

5
Morph
Mon 11th Apr 2016

@Clipse Thanks for clarifying that, I like the music and the feel of the game so I'm interested. I still think I'll hold out for the complete version rather than going for the episodes, but good luck to you.

6
Amrulez
Mon 11th Apr 2016

Arturo I am buying your game, so will many of us here IMO. This is almost like preaching to the choir here. What we worry about is people who are not as crazy as us about all things Nintendo related. An episodic game is risky but I am glad you are bringing the game to us early as I will buy it day one.

7
shani
Mon 11th Apr 2016

Wow, this is one of the worst trailers I've ever seen. No gameplay whatsoever and no explanation what this game is.
Just a reeeeeaally slow monologue that could've been done in 1/3 of the time. You know a trailer is bad when you're reading the text about 3 times faster than the narrator is reading it. I had to skip forward after every block of text because it just takes too long otherwise.

@RainbowGazelle What makes you say that? Is it even a game? The trailer doesn't answer that.

8
SKTTR
Tue 12th Apr 2016

Episodic releases that had an end: Tales of Monkey Island, Strong Bad
Episodic releases that didn't end: ShenMue, escapeVektor, LostWinds

9
Clipse
Tue 12th Apr 2016

@shani That was not exactly a trailer, its the intro of the game itself, where we explain the concept of it. As you can see in the video, you can skip the voice by pressing A ; ). The real trailer is the second video on this news: Nelesa and the sad cells of Moon Prison. Hopefully you like that one better.

Thanks again everyone for your words : )