Yellow Brick Games, an independent studio that was founded back in 2020 by a number of industry veterans with credits in AAA franchises like Dragon Age and Assassin’s Creed, has finally unveiled its debut project already more than four years in the making.
Titled Eternal Strands, it’s billed as a fantasy action-adventure game that blends innovative physics-based systems with action combat in a play space where the world itself becomes your weapon. It’s being developed in Unreal Engine 5 by the 68-strong development team and is slated to launch on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in 2025.
The game will cast players as Brynn, a “Weaver” able to wield and combine both magical abilities and traditional weapons, and use the environment and atmosphere around them to their advantage as they take on huge and fantastical creatures known as Arks. It’s almost like a little bit of Shadow of the Colossus and a dash of Monster Hunter put into a melting pot with Immortals Fenyx Rising (music to my ears across the board).
Aside from being able to climb the giant enemies and exploit their weak points, players can also manipulate elements like fire and ice or use bits of the environment thanks to real-time destruction to add whole new layers to combat and exploration. You can see some of it in the debut trailer as part of IGN’s First coverage below:
“Our hope with Eternal Strands is to deliver an adventure that brings a sense of fun and excitement to fantasy, while encouraging players to experiment with its systems,” says Mike Laidlaw, ex-Bioware creative director and now CCO at Yellow Brick Game, in a press release. “It’s a very different game to ones I’ve worked on in the past, and it’s been a delight to generally answer the question ‘what if the player does X?’ with ‘Cool!’ It’s also exciting to have a chance to build an all-new world that encourages and reacts to this kind of play.”
“We kicked off this adventure 4 years ago during the pandemic with nothing more than a dream and an idea to build amazing games with amazing people,” adds Jeff Skalski, ex-Ubisoft senior producers and now COO and executive producer at Yellow Brick Games. “To now be here is such an incredible feeling. It’s been a journey and we can’t wait for everyone to see what we’ve been pouring our hearts and souls into. I’m pumped!”
You can wishlist Eternal Strands right now on the PlayStation Store and Steam.
