New Torment Enters Beta, Early Access Later This Month on PC

Torment: Tides of Numenera's beta will launch for all eligible backers during the week of January 17 (an exact date was not revealed), Brian Fargo and developer inXile Entertainment announced on Tuesday. The PC isometric RPG' Steam Early Access version, which anyone will be able to buy, arrives on January 26.

"The beta will start you right in the beginning of the game and is quite lengthy for an early beta," Fargo said. "It covers the game's introductory sequence (some of which you may have already seen a portion of in the alpha) as well as most of the first major location of the game, Sagus Cliffs.

"Sagus is a very old city that was built on top of ancient structures that predate the return of humanity to the Ninth World. It's split into five main districts: Circus Minor, Cliff's Edge, Caravanserai, Government Square, and the Underbelly. As you might expect from a city location, it is rich in lore to discover, characters to talk with, and obviously quests to complete!"

Fargo stressed that inXile is hoping to gather feedback from the beta/Early Access to make the final version better as a result. The feedback loop worked well with the alpha and Fargo is hopeful the same will be true for the beta.

"During the alpha, we had a direct feedback form in the game and we'll likely provide that again, as it turned out to be an excellent way for us to gather feedback in a way that was easy for us to parse and implement," he explained. "Indeed, many points from alpha feedback informed our design decisions during beta production, iteration is after all key to making our games. I look forward to gathering more unique insights from this release."

More information about the Tides of Numenera beta release will be shared in the coming days and weeks.

inXile associate producer/designer Thomas Beekers also today penned a detailed blog post titled "The Unusual Items of the Ninth World." It covers a range of interesting setting and design details for the game.

The Kickstarter campaign for Tides of Numenera cruised past its original funding target in just six hours. It ended April 2013 with more than $4.1 million, which at the time was an all-time record for a video game project on the crowdfunding site. Combined with extra funds kicked in through the game's website, Tides of Numenera has raised more than $4.9 million.

Tides of Numenera was originally scheduled to launch in 2015, but in November, was delayed to 2016.

inXile's Wasteland 2 was also funded on Kickstarter, as was the developer's upcoming RPG, The Bard's Tale IV. In other recent inXile news, the studio is opening a new office in New Orleans.