Zen Studios, best-known during in recent years for games like Pinball FX3, has announced Dread Nautical – a horror-themed strategy RPG that's arriving on Nintendo Switch on 29th April. The game was previously released on Apple Arcade late last year.
It's described in full as a tactical, turn-based RPG featuring roguelike elements, and has a charming – yet captivatingly eerie – atmosphere, that promises to be one of the "most unique videogame releases" of 2020. Here's the full rundown:
Mysterious, supernatural forces have overwhelmed the luxury cruise liner known as the Hope with malevolent monstrosities aimed to wipe out any guest in their path. After choosing one of four unique characters, players will traverse twenty, randomly generated decks of the ship, seeking food and other supplies. Along the way, they’ll encounter 11 other colorful survivors, who may choose to join the fight based on what the player input and savvy social interaction. Properly planning which companions to bring, how they attack, and what skills to upgrade are the keys to escaping this “vacation” alive.
Vice President of Publishing, Mel Kirk, said Zen Studios' wanted to branch out and prove it was more than just a pinball wizard. It's also looking forward to allowing its development the freedom to create the games they want to play:
“The release of Dread Nautical to consoles and PC speaks to Zen Studios’ pursuit of developing a broad range of well-polished games to redefine our studio as more than just Pinball Wizards. We’re proud of everything we’ve brought to the pinball space, but are ready to take on new challenges in the broader gaming space.
"More importantly, we are incredibly excited to allow our dev teams the freedom to create games they want to play"
Do you like the look of this? Have you played any of Zen Studios' previous releases? Let us know in the comments.
Comments 14
it ll comes down to price and space but if they want to truly hit and prove other then a good score they need to make it as low as they can or even a steep enough discount day 1 so as many people as possible can see and depending on how well its received could potentially setup future games other then pinball to do as good or better on release.
Brand New = Apple Arcade launch title in September 2019?
Not sure why either the company or this site is distancing itself from that fact.
@edgedino - Wait what? In order for the game to sell more it has to consider less of a success?
Dude, the best way to be a success is simply be a good game. And Zen has a solid reputation, all of their games have been very good. Not the greatest, but solid entertainment. And most are reasonably priced too.
@Paraka I talking about to get rid of the purely pinball image the article clearly makes it seem like all they really do is pinball.
edit:forgot to make my point, basically a discounted or low price game will usually sell extremely well hence how those less then amazing games like bouncy bob have made it to high sales and now has its reputation.
@Gorejelly I've added this information to the first paragraph. Oddly the PR didn't mention this version.
That “song” though..yikes!
@edgedino - sure, high sales. But that's not equivalent to actual success.
And those who think Zen Studios only does pinball is because they simply enjoyed pinball. They've done quite a few different games.
https://blog.zenstudios.com/?page_id=5253
@Liam_Doolan Thanks for adjusting that. I found it really odd that the PR quote said “new” not once but twice. It was a fairly good (but lightweight) X-Com style strategy game with rogue-like elements. It suffered at launch from excess crashing and a few game-breaking bugs (that you could not progress past). Patches took 3 months, and I haven’t had the chance to see if it fixed everything yet. I suspect we’ll see a $19.99 price tag on this (would be happy to be proven wrong), which is much too high for the amount of content this had (unless they’ve added a lot since the initial release).
Haha, the in-game art and theme is slightly different from what the name and splash art implies, but I like it!
This looks really nice. I am definitely interested... The soundtrack seems good too.
@edgedino Does that matter? I've never heard of this studio before and the pinball thing doesn't impact my opinion on this game in the least. If it's a decent game at a decent price, then the pinball thing is irrelevant.
The title confused me. Because I see Pinball Wizard and I thought "The Pinball Arcade" because that song plays when you launch that game. (And some of those tables in Pinball Arcade have issues).
@bozz yes but many people do know the studio after all can't expect everybody to know a company.
Looks pretty cool. Zen’s stuff is highly polished.
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