Encased was announced on Thursday to be a part of Prime Matter, Koch Media’s new gaming label.
From a Kickstarter project in 2017 to a major part of an entire gaming label, Encased has seen a significant rise in popularity and significance over the years.
Starting originally as a passion project by lead developer Vyacheslav Kozikhin on Kickstarter, Encased proved to not just be a flash in the pan. Operating as part of Dark Crystal Games, a development studio based in St. Petersberg, Russia, the developers originally intended for the game to be a Kickstarter exclusive. The involvement of Koch Media only came to be at the tail end of 2020.
Vyacheslav Kozikhin, the creative director said about the partnership-
“From the very first day of development, Encased has evolved as an independent project, created with our own resources and the support of the amazing Kickstarter community. The partnership with Koch Media will maintain our creative freedom and help us showcase the game to a huge global audience,”
Dark Crystal Games were able to fund their project to over 120% of the asking amount. The team included various stretch goals, such as the inclusion of a free play mode, player vehicles, and Mod support.
Encased is not the first rodeo for most of its developers, with most of them having worked on various RPGs before, the most prominent of them being Divinity: Original Sin 2.
Encased became early access not far into its development cycle, with Late 2019 seeing the company release the game on Steam and sending it to its backers on Kickstarter.
The developers gave several reasons for the game to be early access, like players getting to see the game in development every step of the way, and getting feedback and suggestions from their most loyal followers.
Encased Gameplay
Encased is described as borrowing heavily from old-school RPGs, and combining them with elements from modern RPGs. The game features an isometric display, a huge nonlinear story, and more than 200 maps.
The game does not feature any classes, but the players do belong to 5 different professions which correspond to a different manner of playing and dialogue options.
The professional disciplines are-
- The Black Wing – featuring soldiers, violence, and combat.
- The Blue Wing – for Engineers, Technicians, and people who like to build stuff.
- The White Wing – for doctors, scientists, and people who like discovering stuff.
- The Silver Wing – for those who want to role-play being a Manager or a Director, and
- The Orange Wing – for criminals and people who don’t fit anywhere else.
You can fight, farm, and manage your entire community in a single game of Encased, and it all makes for a very engaging experience.
The Story of Encased
Straight from the horse’s mouth,
“Set in an alternative 1976, a vast and inexplicable artifact – The Dome – is discovered in the remote desert and, inside, is packed to the brim with amazing technology that could advance humanity hundreds of years.
The catch, because of course there’s a catch, is that while living creatures can enter the dome, they can never leave; only inanimate and non-organic material can go outside of the dome. So once you’re in, you’re in.”
The developers also had the following to say about the story-
“The plot of Encased tells about the struggle between six factions, and it depends on the player’s choice of how this conflict evolves, who emerges victorious, and how the world under the Dome changes.”
What to Expect From Encased
There are a lot of expectations from Encased, and the team seems perfectly capable of fulfilling them and much more.
The label, Prime Matters, under publisher Koch Media seems to have nabbed a real diamond in the rough here. Encased has the potential to be an RPG that will be talked about in the years to come.
Encased hopes to get a full release in Q3, 2021.
To know more about Encased and Prime Matters, keep up with our website and check out our full coverage of E3 2021 here.