The Belfry stands as a beacon of hope and safety amongst the ruins of humanity and the City of Numbers, with monsters lurking right outside the tower’s walls. You are an Ace, born anew from the spirit realm with the skills, the grit, and the determination to protect the people of the Belfry. With spirit companions fighting by your side, you are destined for battle.

Can you become the Ace humanity needs to survive? Find out in Towerborne, the newest action-adventure game created by Stoic, the studio that brought you the award-winning Banner Saga trilogy.

Adventure Together – Venture out of The Belfry solo or with up to three other Aces* to vanquish the looming terror that surrounds the tower. Either way, you won’t be alone. Aces can recruit Umbra companions to join them in battle, gaining access to enhanced skills and unique abilities tied to each spirit. After fighting your way through enemies, return to The Belfry to turn in quests, reforge gear, and more.

Towerborne will have a bit of a different release plan from most Xbox Game Studios games, so we wanted to provide all the information available. 

In short, Towerborne will enter Early Access exclusively on Steam on September 10, 2024 at $24.99.

Developer Stoic has utilized Early Access well when developing previous games by allowing the community of players help shape and define the final product, and the developer is looking to replicate that success with Towerborne. Microsoft is fully on board with this approach, and is supportive of allowing Stoic to develop in the ways that will lead to the best game.

For the furrowed-browed among you, don’t fret; Towerborne will have a phased release starting with Steam Early Access, Xbox Game Preview following, and a full free-to-play launch planned for 2025. Towerborne will also include cross-progression, so your progress will carry over to whichever platform you prefer to play on. Stoic is eager to have players help shape the future of Towerborne by becoming Founders through purchase of either the Silver or Gold Towerborne Founder’s Pack, offering early access to the game and exclusive perks like cosmetics, emotes, and monthly bonuses. 

“Towerborne is sold for a fixed price during Early Access. Becoming a Founder by
purchasing a Founder’s pack will get you early access to play Towerborne, and with your
help we will fine tune the game on its way to a full, free-to-play release.

We want to take a moment and let you know that Stoic is committed to the following:

• To play during Early Access, players must purchase a Founder’s Pack.
  • As a Founder, you play a crucial role in bringing our vision of a dynamic and immersive world to life. Your support helps us create an experience that will captivate and entertain for years to come.
  • As a Founder, you will receive an item each month upon login during Early Access, as a reward for your ongoing support and to enhance your in-game experience.
• When Towerborne exits Early Access it will be free-to-play.
• For both Early Access and Free Players, ALL updates will be free and NOgameplay will ever be gated behind paid DLC.
  • Weapons, gear, or any and all forms of power-progression will never bebehind a paywall. We will be selling exciting cosmetics and must-haveconvenience items – but those will not influence your power progression."”

Early Access release will include:

• 4 Classes, which you can switch between at any point during the game (exceptmid-combat)
  • The Pyroclast, who uses Warclubs
  • The Sentinel, who uses Sword and Shield
  • The Rockbreaker, who uses Gauntlets
  • The Shadowstriker, who uses Daggers
• 4 Danger Levels to conquer, with a plan to release more when we can.
• Hundreds of Discovery Missions to fight through and unlock
• 13 Venture Missions (replayable dungeon-esque encounters) with multiplebosses to fight and a variety of challenging lieutenants.
• Tons of gear and weapons to find and equip
• A myriad of Aspects will modify your Class build

Players can expect anywhere from 30 - 60 hours of play that will expand throughout the Early Access period as we add new Ventures, Danger Levels, enemies, Legendary items, and systems!

PLEASE NOTE: The game will have a number of FULL WIPES, one of which will happen at the transition from Early Access to the Free launch!

Stoic, known primarily as the maker of Banner Saga, is also more than ready for a change – Towerborne is a seismic and very welcome pivot from its flagship series, which Game Director Daniel McLaren jovially refers to as a “depression simulator.”  

“There was some emotional exhaustion at the end of the last Banner Saga game,” McLaren says. “When you write and build something like that for so many years, there’s a huge weight on your shoulders. There was a very real moment where the team sat down and said: ‘I don’t think we can do another one’.Wouldn’t it be great if we made a game that was completely the opposite of [Banner Saga], something fun that we can play on the couch with our friends and family?” 

Choosing Early Access

Banner Saga began as a Kickstarter, and that constant communication with early backers was paramount to the direction that Stoic took with the game’s development.  

“Stoic’s history has always been about interacting with our players, and Kickstarter is the promise of something,” McLaren says. “For Stoic, that worked out very well, and now we’re able to say hey, you don’t have to wait for us this time, we can give you a game right now.” 

With Early Access, the studio can continue that tradition of building a game with consistent input from players invested in Towerborne‘s journey from the start. As a result, Xbox, PC, and Xbox Game Pass players will immediately feel the benefit of the refinement Towerborne will undergo during the Early Access period and beyond. When Towerborne enters Xbox Game Preview, it will open the floodgates to even more players across these platforms, allowing their feedback to further shape the game’s development.

“It starts with our Founders – players who’ve self-selected to get a first pass at helping us shape the full game,” says Trisha Stouffer, CEO and President  of Stoic. “After Steam Early Access, with Xbox Game Preview next and eventually Free-to-Play with the full launch, the gates are thrown so wide for anyone to come in, which makes it harder to discern what is noise versus actionable feedback. So, our goal with Early Access is to position ourselves so the game is stable and feels great to play before we open up to a wider audience.” 

Xbox is also wholeheartedly supportive of Stoic’s historic approach to Early Access and working with players directly from the start. 

“We all have the same goal – to create a game that people love for a long time,” says Kristofor Mellroth, Executive Producer at Xbox Games Studios Publishing. “From the start, we knew our approach with Towerborne was going to be a little different. By being very targeted at the start and building up to bigger audiences, this allows the team to continue iterating and honing the most complex systems to make them the most fun they can be.”

Free To Play

While Towerborne’s Early Access and Xbox Game Preview periods will grant the team precious time and feedback to build the best release possible, making the full-game free for anyone felt important to Towerborne’s overarching goal of complete approachability. 

“The Founder’s pack lets us do two main things: one is that we can slowly see where problems are and get attention onto those areas quickly,” McLaren explains. “The second thing, it invites a group of people that are really invested in the game, that believe in Stoic. They want to be a part of shaping the future of Towerborne.” 

The Free-To-Play approach shone brightly through Banner Saga: Factions, a free-to-play spinoff of the main series released in 2013. The idea was to allow players to come in for free and experience  the combat elements of  Banner Saga ahead of its launch, and Stoic was thrilled with how the process allowed as many people as possible to come in and help shape the game.  

“They were helping us building our combat and just making the game better in general, everyday we’d get feedback and do updates, I must have spent three hours a day just talking to the community,” say Arnie Jorgensen, Stoic co-founder. “We really missed that aspect after going back to working on a single player game, so we’re excited to bring it back.”

A Second Game 

It’s fair to say that the currency a lot of modern games demand is your time above all else. While Towerborne’s enticing gameplay loop and limitless progression certainly allows you to spend as much time as you want in its world, Stoic, in a refreshing fashion, is pushing back on design elements that keep a player rooted to just one game. Towerborne can be your main game, but it can also be your second game that you can just jump into whenever the mood strikes, with minimal friction. 

“You don’t have to invest hundreds of hours every month to keep up with everybody else,” Jorgensen says. “Play as much as you want to, go away and play other games, and then come back. It’s important to acknowledge that everyone plays games differently. You can play for five or ten minutes and still feel like you accomplished something great, or you can play for five hours.” 

Stouffer adds: “It really is the manifestation of ‘just one more mission.”

A Living, Breathing Belfry

Towerborne is a living game – which means the team will continue to develop the story, add new content and build out its world for as long as they can. As you progress, the world will evolve with your character, and this approach lends itself seamlessly to crafting an expansive, immersive backdrop to the fun you’re having as a player. 

“We have a freedom with an ongoing game that feels unattainable inside a single player experience,” McLaren says. “There’s this incredible worldbuilding going on, and if we want to add in new stories, new weapons or classes, we’re able to just focus solely on doing that and getting it into the game quickly.”

Getting that second perspective is also crucial when it comes to seeing what your game can do. Oftentimes, a new set of eyes can be a great asset in scoping for bugs, sparking new ideas, and making an entire team say: “why didn’t we think of that?”   

“Players love to push the boundaries, and that’s part of the fun of it all,” Stouffer says. “You have an idea of what players are going to do, but you don’t truly know what will happen until you put it in people’s hands. Even the players who come in with the best intentions, they will do things where we say ‘oh, we didn’t know that could happen’. All bets are off.” 

It’s not just technical feedback that Stoic wants to gather from early players either. Stoic has recognized its community’s eye for great storytelling and ideas, and considers players almost as co-developers in its journey to build Towerborne. 

“We have ideas of where the story is going, but we’re totally willing to pivot if another idea comes from the community,” Jorgensen says. “We had that happen a lot with Banner Saga, where we’d see a great idea but it’s too late to add it into a single player game.” 

“This is our opportunity to really build a game with the players again. We think our ideas are great and hope that players agree, but they are going to have awesome ideas too, and to me, that’s the coolest part about making Towerborne a living game.”

It’s Still Stoic 

Stoic is cognizant of the fact that Towerborne is a big change from Banner Saga, and the studio is by no means finished with that series. However, the team made a very deliberate decision to create an exciting multiplayer experience that invites everyone to sit down and have a great time.  

 “Anyone that has been following Stoic for a long time knows we’re making the games that we want to make – that doesn’t mean we’re going to make the same game all the time,” Jorgensen says. 

The commitment to fun is notably present throughout our conversation – the team itself is clearly enjoying building Towerborne and that enthusiasm will no doubt shine through the game. 

“We know some people will need time to process the change, and that’s totally okay,” McLaren adds. “We’re still the same studio, we’re just applying that passion and focus in a different way, and recharging our creative juices.” 

Brave the Wilds – Towerborne is designed with player choice in mind. Create your Ace with options to customize your looks, gear and weapons. Switch up your overall gameplay experience at any time by changing your danger level as you venture into the wilds. Find and wield powerful weapons with unique special moves from one of four styles: War Clubs, Gauntlets, Dual Daggers, and Swords & Shields. Mix and match to make your Ace your own!

Continue the Fight – With an evolving world map and seasonal content, your Ace will never run out of areas to explore and enemies to defeat. Seasons of Towerborne continue the story of The Belfry by introducing new enemies to battle, regions to discover, abilities to master, and lore to uncover (available as released).

*Online console multiplayer requires Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or Xbox Live Gold (subscriptions sold separately).

Towerborne is coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC (Steam) in 2025, and will also be available day one on Xbox Game Pass/PC Game Pass