The Bard's Tale IV announced

Hey, so remember inXile's teases a few weeks back that they were working on another "passionately demanded" RPG? Well, this is almost certainly it: a new Bard's Tale game (and a proper sequel at that) to 1988's Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate.

inXile CEO Brian Fargo announced the news yesterday at PAX South, stopping short of revealing much about The Bard's Tale IV, although he did promise "more details to follow". Thankfully, Fargo revealed a few of those details to IGN, including that the story will take place in Skara Brae, where the very first game was set. Combat will be turn-based, but everyone will now take their turns all at once—goodies and baddies alike. Fargo seems to have been inspired by Hearthstone, in this regard.

There will be a Kickstarter, of course—their last two did pretty well, you might recall—but there's no news on exactly when yet. We'll be sure to tell you when inXile fire theirs up, though personally I'm a little disappointed that those trademarks for Van Buren and Meantime don't appear to be coming to fruition, at least yet.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.