Solasta: Crown of the Magister promises a deep, D&D-style tactical RPG

Solasta: Crown of the Magister is a new tactical RPG announced today by Tactical Adventures, a Paris-based developer launched last year by Amplitude Studios co-founder Mathieu Girard. It aims "to bring the true tabletop roleplaying experience to videogames," Girard said in the debut development diary, which also features some brief but very promising clips of pre-alpha gameplay footage.

Solasta appears to be a game in the vein of Dungeons & Dragons, which Girard references in the video. Players will create a party of four adventurers of races and classes, and then guide them through various different realms on a quest for treasure and experience. 

But its big hook is verticality: The game world is three-dimensional rather than "a series of flat maps," which along with adding depth to combat also promises to enable exploration "by climbing walls, flying, teleporting, crawling through tunnels, finding secret passages, or falling through unstable ground."

"Additionally, we have added new features such as light, verticality, team-based adventure, dice rolls, etc," Girard said. "We are using the actual rulesets from tabletop games to finally bridge the gap between pen and paper and videogames."

With all due respect to Girard, Tactical Adventures isn't exactly the first studio to take a seat at that table—BioWare did it (and Larian is doing it) with Baldur's Gate, Bloodlines 2 is a World of Darkness game, and Fallout was originally a GURPS game—but that's a relatively minor quibble. Solasta is still early in development and the basic setup isn't going to win any awards for originality, but a proper tabletop RPG experience on PC will always be my jam, and even at this stage I think it's worth keeping an eye on.

A Kickstarter to support Solasta is coming soon, and the developers say that there will be a demo, although it's not clear whether it will be released as part of the crowdfunding campaign or at some point after. For now, you can find out more about what's happening at solasta-game.com.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.