The Banner Saga 3
The ongoing Saga goes on no more.
We should all take a second to sit back and appreciate how solid an achievement it is for the dev to complete The
BannerSaga3, rounding off the tale of Vikings, the Darkness, witches and wonder as it does. This doesn’t really happen too often in video games. If you’re returning to the series, you will be able to import your old saves and carry on with all decisions intact, but if you’ve decided to jump in at the third game, you are able to choose a hero and go through all of the major decisions from the previous two games, picking your options as you go.
The story is told from multiple viewpoints just like last time, although this time around, we have one band (under constant attack) surviving in the last untainted human settlement, and a second band (also under constant attack) travelling through the Darkness trying to find a solution to the problem destroying the world. These parallel stories play out the same way they always have in the Banner series. There are the story-led cutscenes where the action unfolds, you can have conversations, and perhaps have to make some tough decisions. There are the battles, playing out in a turn-based grid format.
TheBannerSaga is, just as the dev has always intended, a rich tapestry of journeys and destinations, stories and interactions, and inevitable, unavoidable bloodshed. And it’s really pretty lovely.
It isn’t the best turn-based tactics game out there, and it doesn’t feature the most engrossing story either. But it ends up being far greater than the sum of its parts. If there’s no other way you could play the first two games in the series, we’d still recommend giving this third one a go. Thanks to the choices you make, no two stories will ever be completely alike, and few series are able to deliver that level of personalisation across multiple games. We’re hopeful for more from Stoic in the future, but for now, this is a Saga that’s come to a satisfying close.
Ian Dransfield