Towers of Aghasba Preview
The island setting is planned to act as a large blank canvas, allowing players to create different islands based on where and how they choose to grow their ecosystems.
Established in 2020, Dreamlit Games fully revealed its debut title Towers of Aghasba last month. Ahead of today’s announcement of its Early Access release date of November 18, 2024, RPGamer was given the opportunity to learn some more about the title, which looks to combine action, adventure, survival, building, and RPG elements as players create an island civilisation in balance with nature.
The game’s origins and initial ideas date back to 2009 with studio founder Khang Le, who drew inspiration from Minecraft and Shadow of the Colossus as well as animated film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. More recent inspirations in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing demonstrated the possibility of transitioning to more of a builder-based game than a true survival game, something that helped give the game a wider appeal and spoke more to some of the Studio Ghibli-esque themes that the team is looking to emulate. For the game’s visual style, the developers have actively looked for cultures that havent been drawn from very much in games, such as the Aztecs, Africa, and Jomon-era Japan, and combining them with hand-painted textures for its backgrounds and scenery.
Towers of Aghasba tasks players with restoring the Shimu people’s civilisation.
Towers of Aghasba starts with players washing up on a beach following a shipwreck alongside their companions. Players are one of the Shimu people, who have returned to the land of Aghasba after previously being forced to flee by a nefarious entity called the Withered. The land starts off effectively barren, so players are first required to build up the natural resources needed to help them survive, starting with an initial special colossal tree that kickstarts life, quickly luring new animals and plants that pave the way for harvesting, crafting, and more.
There are three main pillars to the gameplay: ecosystem nurturing, town-building, and exploration. Players start with a single colossal tree seed, which has its own sprite that offers quests to further restore nature, and have full freedom over where they plant it, where it almost completely transforms the land. The island setting is planned to act as a large blank canvas, with the developer stating it takes around thirty minutes to run across it, which should allow different players to create different islands based on where and how they choose to grow their ecosystems. Players will be able to plant seeds, use fertilisers, help wounded creatures, feed animals, bow fish, hunt, and harvest, though the game is planned to encourage moderation in hunting and harvesting. Certain elements make use of player cooperation, such as luring fish out for another player to catch. Meanwhile, differences that come from player decisions over their ecosystems are planned to encourage trading between players and make things unique when visit others islands.
Players are encouraged to use moderation when hunting or harvesting.
While restoring the ecosystem is a vital part of it, the main goal for players is to restore the civilisation of the Shimu people. This is where the town-building comes in, and as its title suggests, towers are a big part of that. Similarly to the three different main types of ecosystem that players can create, there are three different types of towns available for them to build. The goal is for these towers, which the towns are built around, to grow taller and taller. This in turn unlocks new building types, crafting stations, and more. Player creativity is fully encouraged as they can place and arrange these buildings where they wish. The development team is hoping that players will create lots of varied settlements such as a quaint seaside village or a rugged mining town.
Exploration involves many different ways of getting around. Trees are fully climbable, while players can also use gliding tools as well as ride various animals. Players are invited to explore to uncover, catalog, and learn about which creatures have been attracted to island by their decisions and restoration of the ecosystem. While the ecosystem and town-building elements can appear quite whimsical, the game does have some darker aspects to it. The island has an area called the Withered Land, where players are not able to build or grow anything. This area allows for the standard-looking action combat from the outset, with the Withered Land initially covering around seventy percent of the island before players can restore parts of it to the islands basic biomes. Tackling the Withered Land gets harder as players restore more of it, with enemies getting more challenging and requiring more difficult-to-obtain items for players to be able to undertake the restoration process, helping to create a general gameplay loop with the other systems.
Players have lots of freedom with how they restore ecosystems as well as build up their towns.
Towers of Aghasba will come with a vast array of unusual characters with plenty of planned lore that will be added as Early Access evolves and expands. The developers are quite interested in telling stories looking at the past, using gameplay mechanics such as archaeology and relic discovery as players uncover pieces of history and let players slowly build up their own picture of what happened. Players will be able to build up their own museum and place artifacts within it. Other systems will also make themselves known, such as the Amity system, which offers a sort of currency designed to teach players about moderation. Although the game does include PvE multiplayer, it is designed more in the vein of Animal Crossing, with up to four players able to visit another player’s island and work together or help each other while checking out their creations.
Towers of Aghasba will launch into Early Access on both Steam and PlayStation 5 on November 18, 2024. The Early Access version will be available for $29.99, with those who pre-order on PlayStation 5 receiving a custom Harelope mount design, five unique decorations, and the exclusive masks. The game is currently expected to spend around twelve to eighteen months in Early Access, with major updates planned during this time to add content as well as polish.
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