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How Torment: Tides of Numenera brings the reactivity of dialogue to combat

Torment: Tides of Numenera features encounters called Crises which are designed to make combat feel as flexible and varied as its dialogue.

One of the hard problems of modern RPGs is that the battle system rarely lives up to the reactivity of the rest of the game. You may have dozens of options in dialogue and quests, but when it comes to combat, players often feel obliged to stick to specific character builds and tactics (the holy trinity, for example) instead of exploring all the options available to them.

InXile is hoping to avoid this, giving players many paths through encounters. In the video below you can see a couple of variations on a Crisis encounter, wih very different paths through a single battle.

Cover image for YouTube video

Tides of Numenera has big shoes to fill, as its spiritual precursor, Planescape: Torment, is one of the most acclaimed RPGs of its time - maybe of all time.

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Torment: Tides of Numenera

PS4, Xbox One, PC, Mac

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Brenna Hillier avatar

Brenna Hillier

Contributor

Based in Australia and having come from a lengthy career in the Aussie games media, Brenna worked as VG247's remote Deputy Editor for several years, covering news and events from the other side of the planet to the rest of the team. After leaving VG247, Brenna retired from games media and crossed over to development, working as a writer on several video games.

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