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Chris Avellone joins the Torment team

With just two days to go on the Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter campaign, a host of new talents have been added to the team.

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commentary With just two days to go on the Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter campaign, a host of new talents have been added to the team.

The Last Castoff. (Credit: inXile Entertainment)

Two days are left on the Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter campaign, and, having hit US$3.5 million overnight, the title is now the second-highest funded game on Kickstarter — but it is rapidly catching up with Chris Avellone's Project Eternity.

Since the base funding goal was just US$900,000, this means a lot of really interesting stretch goals have been reached, the most recent of which is that Avellone — who was one of the major driving forces of the game's predecessor, Planescape: Torment — has joined his former partner Colin McComb on the game's design team.

We really like the approach that inXile Entertainment has taken with the stretch goals, actually; as well as the usual in-game rewards, such as an expanded story and new NPCs, areas and companions, inXile has been allocating the extra funds to hiring some amazing talent to work on the project.

These names include:

  • The Name of the Wind author Patrick Rothfuss to join the writing team and write a companion

  • Brian Mitsoda, who is best known for his writing work on the 2004 RPG Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

  • George Ziets, former creative lead for the 2007 title Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer

  • Mur Lafferty, author, podcaster and former writer for White Wolf and other RPG companies

  • Tony Evans, who worked on the design teams for both Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dragon Age 2.

In Tides of Numenera, a former human, now called the Changing God, has discovered a way to cheat death by jumping into other bodies, casting them off when he's done and disappearing. You play as the Last Castoff — a body used by the Changing God before he moved on; now, amnesiac, you're hunted by his enemies, not knowing why. Like Planescape: Torment's "What can change the nature of a man?", Tides of Numenera asks the question, "What does one life matter?"

We think it's pretty safe to say that this game is going to be brilliant.

To make sure you're in on the action, visit the Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter page, and take a few minutes to check out the first animated in-game footage below.