Darksiders Creators Launch Indie Kickstarter to Bring Comic-Inspired JRPG to PS4

It's a cold day in Hell if you don't find this particular scribe praising the Darksiders series made by the former Vigil Games. Both games exhibited Joe Madureira's profoundly unique, bold art style that brought their fantastical worlds and mythical characters to life, and with solid hack 'n' slash gameplay backed by puzzle-solving dungeons and role-playing game systems, getting to experience the titles' over-the-top, epic stories of Biblical proportions was an absolute pleasure for us. So it's no guess that we're incredibly excited to report that key ex-Vigil Games employees have formed their own indie studio named Airship Syndicate to revive one of Madureira's cult comic hits, Battle Chasers, as an unabashed JRPG.

Taking inspiration from classic Japanese RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Phantasy Star, Battle Chasers: Nightwar follows an unlikely group of heroes out to help a young girl discover what happened to her father when he went inside a mysterious realm shrouded in mist, called the Grey Line. Along the way, there are countless turn-based battles to engage in with your party of varying skills and abilities. Even the position of your team members is important, since the game will throw curve balls by having specific locations of characters benefit or hurt them based on the environment with "random buffs and debuffs on initiative slots".

You'll be exploring dungeons with randomly-generated aspects that are never alike, with shifting rooms, enemies, NPCs, places that can only be accessed by particular characters' abilities, and more. Resting points are sparse, all non-equipped items are lost upon death, and traps will ensure that this is no RPG that holds your hand. This isn't even to mention all of the loot and weapons that you can find, perk trees that each character possesses, and the gorgeous backdrops and hand-drawn animated cutscenes.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar certainly looks to be a passionate, ambitious project for Airship Syndicate, and with the studio having received three-quarters of its $500,000 goal in less than two days, and having announced earlier today that it will arrive on PS4 with its initial funding met, we're hard-pressed to believe that you won't be seeing this on Sony's powerhouse within a year or two.

What do you think about Battle Chasers: Nightwar? Does it sound like a much-needed take on the JRPG genre from a Western perspective? Are you going to throw money at your computer screen to see this fantasy realm become a reality, or is it just another indie project that doesn't cast its spell on you? Chase us down in the comments section below.