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.

 

[JConstantine]

The latest live stream went over the basic rules:

 

[Bill Zebub]

What do people think of this game as a candidate for RPGing with kids in the 8-13 age range?

 

[Aldarc]

Also they announced that future reward for unlocking the 550K stretch goal will be a 3pp for the CAT system that Twilight Sword uses.

 

[timbannock]

What do people think of this game as a candidate for RPGing with kids in the 8-13 age range?

It's absolutely geared toward that. If D&D is aimed at 12+, this is easily 8+. The setting info backed up by the mechanics is entirely themed around a very heroic, exploration focused Zelda style. You advance specifically by giving people hope and fighting off the "despair" in the form of non-humanoid monsters.

 

[JConstantine]

What do people think of this game as a candidate for RPGing with kids in the 8-13 age range?

The Zelda series is obviously the single biggest influence, Breath of the Wild in particular, and that game has an ESRB rating of E10+ and PEGI 12. Different parents can be more or less permissive than official age ratings, so making the game appropriate for younger audiences may just be a matter of framing the defeat of monsters more in line with a Saturday morning cartoon.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The Zelda series is obviously the single biggest influence, Breath of the Wild in particular, and that game has an ESRB rating of E10+ and PEGI 12. Different parents can be more or less permissive than official age ratings, so making the game appropriate for younger audiences may just be a matter of framing the defeat of monsters more in line with a Saturday morning cartoon.

“You fall 1,000 feet onto rocks, and just as you sit up, the anvil lands on you.

What do you do?”

 

[timbannock]

“You fall 1,000 feet onto rocks, and just as you sit up, the anvil lands on you.

What do you do?”

Obviously it's time for the old bird seed and dynamite trick.

 

[timbannock]

The Zelda series is obviously the single biggest influence, Breath of the Wild in particular, and that game has an ESRB rating of E10+ and PEGI 12. Different parents can be more or less permissive than official age ratings, so making the game appropriate for younger audiences may just be a matter of framing the defeat of monsters more in line with a Saturday morning cartoon.

Jokes aside, this is a great callout.

I'm planning a D&D intro for my nephew since he sorta happened into a copy of the Starter Set and Essentials Kit, and am absolutely handling defeat in this way, as he doesn't handle serious violence well. My main changes are making all the villains markedly non-human (which Twilight Sword does), making any goblinoids and the like fey creatures that don't really die but "get banished back to the Feywild" on defeat, and making defeat look like:

• Bonked on the noggin, stars and birdies circling overhead
• Getting a tunic or armor pinned to a wall
• Being disarmed
• Getting a belt cut and their leg armor falling around their ankles

And the like, culminating with them either surrendering immediately or (esp. for non-humanoids) disappearing in a puff of smoke as they go back to the Feywild. I feel like this is an opportunity to show that 0 HP can be more than just "damaged" to death, but can represent morale, exhaustion, disarm, trip, pin, sunder, and all those special maneuvers D&D used to have Feats for.

 

[Jensaarai]

My main changes are making all the villains markedly non-human (which Twilight Sword does), making any goblinoids and the like fey creatures that don't really die but "get banished back to the Feywild" on defeat, and making defeat look like:

• Bonked on the noggin, stars and birdies circling overhead
• Getting a tunic or armor pinned to a wall
• Being disarmed
• Getting a belt cut and their leg armor falling around their ankles

And the like, culminating with them either surrendering immediately or (esp. for non-humanoids) disappearing in a puff of smoke as they go back to the Feywild. I feel like this is an opportunity to show that 0 HP can be more than just "damaged" to death, but can represent morale, exhaustion, disarm, trip, pin, sunder, and all those special maneuvers D&D used to have Feats for.

that's all honestly a really good way of recontextualizing defeat in RPGs like this, and it helps with coming up with more ways than just "you kill them / you knock them out" in the narrative-telling of a game