The Bard's Tale IV video offers up our first glimpse of combat

Since The Bard's Tale IV is a dungeon crawler, you'll be spending the majority of your time tactically smiting foes. This particular instalment will support up to six playable characters in-combat, as well as two potential summonable creatures. As the video below demonstrates, you'll traverse the world in first-person, but in combat the party members will be illustrated in third-person at the bottom of the screen.

It's definitely looking very lovely, but InXile hasn't settled on the way the HUD will be displayed, nor are the character models final. While free movement is available, it's also possible to use grid-based movement as well.

There's also an Opportunity system, which is best described by the studio itself. "The blue and yellow gems on the HUD represent your party's and your enemy's opportunity. Opportunity is a shared resource that each side has, and it is granted each turn in combat. Unlike some other games where you will be forced to use action points for each character (or skip their turn), opportunity is a bit like a shared action point pool. The flexibility of this system means that party members can set up multi-hit combos, reposition for multiple attacks, or evade danger more effectively."

The full update is worth a thorough read if you're looking forward to The Bard's Tale IV. The Kickstarter-funded game is expected to release around October this year. For some neat insight into the environmental design, look no further.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.