A Bavarian Tale: Totgeschwiegen chooses to leave early access

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Announcements by Jack Allin
Published:

Complete version of narrative RPG set in nineteenth century Bavaria on Steam for Windows PC

Thanks in part to the success of recent narrative-driven titles like Disco Elysium, roleplaying and stat-building are no longer the exclusive domain of dungeon-crawling videogames or tabletops. The latest combat-lite genre-bending hybrid is A Bavarian Tale: Totgeschwiegen, a nineteenth century narrative RPG from indie German developer Active Fungus Studios that has just emerged from early access.

In 1866, a young surveyor named Valentin Schmidt is sent on the crown's behalf to the "picturesque, pastoral village" of Wolpertshofen in Upper Bavaria. The town seems peaceful enough at first, even idyllic, but when someone dies in a particularly cruel fashion, it soon reveals itself as "a world full of dark secrets, inexplicable events, social tensions and a hostile hush" that doesn't take kindly to strangers poking about in its affairs. It's clear that "the residents are on edge, and a dark secret hovers over the community," but how can you learn the truth without endangering yourself as well? You'll need to use your best detective skills if you're to penetrate the resistance of this "conspiratorial village," but just what those skills are is entirely up to you.

Played from a free-roaming, third-person perspective, A Bavarian Tale's beautifully rustic setting is meant to "exude genuine Bavarian charm," with characters voiced by real Bavarians either in their original language or in English with local accents. How you approach the mystery in this deceptively inhospitable community will depend on the "tricky decisions" you make and which abilities you choose to level up. Will you opt to be charming and diplomatic, play it sneaky, or take a more direct – even violent – approach? Your decisions will need to pass skill checks in the "classic pen&paper manner," so as you progress you'll want to level up in your desired areas of specialty, and craft items that will boost your skills further still. A single playthrough is projected to take about ten hours to complete, leading to one of eleven different endings depending on your choices.

Originally released through early access in September 2021, the complete version of A Bavarian Tale: Totgeschwiegen is now available on Steam for Windows PC.