Team 17 announces Broken Roads, brings the post-apocalypse down under

Taking the post-apocalyptic genre back to its roots is Team 17, whose upcoming RPG Broken Roads features former Australia as its setting.

G’Day

If there’s anyplace that’s become synonymous with ‘post-apocalypse’ than Australia, I’m not sure what it’d be. The land down under served as one of the very first locales for the genre in film, with Mad Max’ saga. And since then of course it’s featured in games of the same franchise, not that there are many of those.

Well, I guess you can add in Broken Roads, though it’s not a tie-in with the aforementioned. Spinning out of Team 17 and Drop Bear Bytes, Broken Roads has been tagged as taking place in “an unforgiving, post-apocalyptic Western Australia”.

Check out the first look at its turn-based role-playing in action:

At the heart of Broken Roads’ thoughtful and mature storylines is a deep and meaningful morality system – the Moral Compass – that influences quests, dialogue, and character development. The system is shaped along four different philosophical paths: Humanist, Utilitarian, Machiavellian, and Nihilist, each with their own unique traits. As the journey begins, players will be asked a series of questions – moral quandries – that determine their starting position on the compass. Decisions made throughout the game will then shift their philosophical leaning and affect future choices, quests, and reactions from the people they meet.

Team 17

Unapologetically single-player and story-driven, Broken Roads is set to revel in classic RPG gameplay. That though, does not mean that it’s stuck in the past. According to Team 17, you can expect a deep “moral compass” system that will directly affect both story and gameplay. Interesting notion there, especially regarding the latter.

Also worth a note is that this isn’t some fantasy version of Australia. It’s the real thing, and even after the end of civilization, you should be able to recognize “real-world locations”.

As cool as all of this sounds though, Broken Roads is still a ways off. The title isn’t expected to land on the PC and consoles until some time in 2022.