Here’s what happened to The Banner Saga 2
The Banner Saga, Stoic’s Kickstarter success story, made a big splash when it launched in 2014. The stylish Viking journey game combined roleplaying with turn-based combat. As part of a planned trilogy, the tale of Rook’s caravan proved emotionally compelling and gamers eagerly awaited the continuation. But did you know there’s already a sequel? The Banner Saga 2 launched in April of 2016, but sales have been notoriously low compared to the first game. John Watson, co-founder of Stoic, partially blames their decision to not run a Kickstarter or engage the community for the sequel. Because sales from the first game were good enough to fill the coffers at the studio, Stoic decided to forego the crowd-funding and finance development themselves. Unfortunately, this disconnected them from the core fan supporters.
“I think we dropped the ball there,” Watson admits. “We thought that audience would still just be there. We really neglected our community during the development of Banner Saga 2, because we were focusing on our work. I think that was a mistake. We all agree that was a mistake.”
Stoic insists the tale will continue in The Banner Saga 3, and Watson says the lessons learned from the first two games will benefit its development. Whether or not the third game will be crowd-funded is something the studio is still considering.
