Former Ubisoft and Eidos-Montréal developer Stevan Anastasoff has announced Tales from the Mabinogion, a third-person role-playing game based on age-old Welsh folklore, written primarily in Welsh. The game puts you in the shoes of a wandering monarch who sets out on a quest to save his kingdom from a terrible fog. Find the trailer below. Yes, there are English subtitles.
“When a vengeful sorcerer unleashes a cursed mist upon the ancient Welsh kingdom of Dyfed, the warrior king finds himself embroiled in a battle with beasts from the mythical Otherworld of Annwn” the Steam page explains“To save her kingdom, she embarks on a quest to uncover the origins of the curse—and discover the secrets necessary to break its corrupting grip.”
In Tales from the Mabinogion, you follow beast tracks and battle mystical creatures in a landscape of faded organic pigments and hefty brushstrokes inspired by Erin Hanson, Vincent Van Gogh, and Claude Monet (another similarity, if not influence, is Aardman’s World War 11-11: Memories Retold, whose art style is a commentary on the fallibility of memory). It’s unclear if there’s any sort of combat system involved, but there’s certainly confrontation and conflict.
The Mabinogion of the title is a collection of age-old Welsh tales dating back to the 12th century. As you journey through the game, you’ll discover several of these fragmentary tales. “Welsh is a beautiful, ancient, musical, magical language – the language that inspired Tolkien to create the Sildarin, the language of the elves,” Anastasoff comments in a press release. “There’s no more fitting way to tell a fantasy story!”
Anastasoff’s collaborators include renowned Warhammer writer Gav Thorpe, author of The Lion. The Welsh script for the game is by translator Rhys Iorwerth, and the narrator is Phil Rowe, whose credits include Age Of Empires and Raid: Shadow Legends. The music is by Welsh folk musician Oliver Wilson-Dickson.
The game will be released on PC via Steam in 2025.
