The Banner Saga 2 premieres for Windows, Mac on April 19

By Danny Cowan March 24, 2016

the banner saga 2 hits pcs in april bs2 header — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Banner Saga series creator Stoic announced that its long-awaited sequel title, The Banner Saga 2, will debut for Windows and Mac via Steam on April 19.

“Being a small team and working on something we love is both amazing and challenging but we’re finally here with Banner Saga 2,” community director Lance James announced on Steam. “We’re proud to have the Windows and OSX version of the game launching on April 19th.”

James additionally revealed that The Banner Saga 2 will be available for $20 at launch — a discount compared to the first game’s launch price of $25. Players can claim an additional $2 discount by pre-ordering The Banner Saga 2 prior to release via its Steam store page.

2014’s The Banner Saga merges Viking lore with tactical-RPG gameplay, offering up a single-player campaign in which player choices and conversations shape the game’s surrounding narrative. April’s sequel will continue the storyline introduced in the original The Banner Saga, adding a number of new characters along with a series of mechanical tweaks.

The Banner Saga was an early Kickstarter success story, raising more than $723,000 in crowdsourced funding. In addition to core franchise releases, Stoic and publisher Versus Evil also produced the free-to-play multiplayer spinoff The Banner Saga: Factions, and are currently working on The Banner Saga: Warbands, a board game adaptation.

Despite its success on PCs, The Banner Saga proved difficult to port to consoles. Stoic technical director John Watson recently admitted that the game’s porting process has been “more expensive and time consuming than we had originally expected,” due to missed milestones and the recent shutdown of the game’s porting studio. Ports for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are currently in production, and Sony recently stepped in to rescue a planned PS Vita version from cancellation.

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