Free League Announces Anime-Inspired Twilight Sword RPG

Free League Publishing has announced Twilight Sword, a new collaboration with Italian games studio Two Little Mice. The new game is a fantasy RPG inspired by video games like The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Ni No Kuni. Players explore the world of Radia in the game, exploring Landmarks and collecting Hope by defeating bosses. A 16-page preview of the game revealed five Kin that players can choose from, including the Huma, the cat-like Kedi, and the penguin-like Pengu. The preview did not reveal any details about the game system, but there appears to be a focus on exploration and defeating monsters.

One interesting part of this announcement is the collaboration with Two Little Mice. The Italian publisher was purchased by CMON back in 2021 to bolster that company's line of RPGs. However, CMON has had struggles this year, in part due to tariff uncertainty. CMON has sold off several IPs to other studios and has paused new game development to focus on current fulfillment, with many questioning about the publisher's future. Free League also partnered with Two Little Mice to publish Outgunned, so it's unclear whether Two Little Mice has gone independent once again or if this is an arrangement with CMON.

 

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I imagine this won't surprise anyone, but apparently it's not an isekai either.

Until players get their hands on it.

 

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Here is a video where Two Little Mice talk about their upcoming Twilight Sword game:


Begins around 53-54 minute mark.

 

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Summary of the info from the stream that I found on their Discord:

TWILIGHT SWORD​

• Very different to their other games.
• Will fold out to a square. Is as tall as OG but much narrower
• Layout will be in squares for usability
• Main art by Daniela. Additional art by other artists, Mainly monsters, maps and items
• It is an exploration and travelling game
• You wake up in a world you do not know or has changed. Vardas is the bad guy who changes the world and throws it in despair. Your job is to bring back hope to Radia.
• Despair and Hope will have mechanical impact i.e. XP. You need enough XP to be able to fight Vardas in his castle.
• World split in square in various shapes (Like L or a square)
• Every area will have different levels of Despair. You can only gain as much Hope as an Area has Despair level. This forces you to travel onwards
• It will use d12 (because they are the best dice of course)
• It will be a roll under between 1-10, plus advantage, modifiers etc
• There will be Feats and Stamina
• There will be elements, Elemental Damage, Magic and items that easily break
• There will be crafting
• Monsters will "Respawn"
• A Rule needs to fit in one of the layout squares (Poor Catherina needing to translate into the same space heh)
• There might be a quickstart in October
• Crowdfunding still in 2025 in cooperation with Free League