Fantasy and medieval games often assume a familiar shape — stone castles pulled from Western Europe, monarchies rooted in Roman politics, and magic systems rooted in mythology. However,BlackThorne Keepis a different kind of fantasy. Developed by Limiar Studios,BlackThorne Keepis an upcomingindie gamethat imagines what a medieval setting might look like if it had been born in Brazil, shaped by indigenous heritage, South American architecture, and a history that never made it into the genre’s canon.
Game Rant recently attended Gamescom Latam, where we interviewed Roberto Garcia, CEO of Limiar Studios and creator ofBlackThorne Keep. During the interview, Garcia went into explicit detail aboutBlackThorne Keep’s design, both from the standpoint of creating the medieval Brazil that never was, and the game’slow-fantasy storyand RPG gameplay.The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Crafting Medieval Brazil
Q: You all mentioned that medieval Brazil wasn’t a thing, and you’re basically inventing that. Could you tell us a little bit about that process?
A: One of the greatest things about creating the game is being able to go back in time and do an experience of imagination. What would happen if, back then, they needed to build these kinds of buildings, this kind of technology? So, we went back and analyzed how medieval architecture actually worked. If you look at a medieval fence, you’re going to see that there are layers. The first layer is usually rock and then the second layer is stone and plaster. How would that translate to Brazil? And that’s how our process started.
The other thing is, all fantastical settings have an ancient people. In the real world, that translates to Egypt, that translates to Rome and England. You go to England and all these ancient Roman places before England was a thing. What would that be in South America? We did not have anything like theRoman Empirehere. That would be like the Inca and the Aztec empires that happened before colonization. So, in our world, there is an ancient people, an ancient civilization based on old megalithic architecture, like Machu Picchu, like the Loto Tambo, and Sasuyama. That’s what we refer to as ancient civilization architecture.
When you mix all that, something new comes out. When you throw native cultures in the mix, we get what we call the native warrior in full plate armor. I have never seen aBrazilian indigenous warriorwearing medieval armor. The first time we saw that, we thought, “This is the identity we are looking for. That’s what we’re aiming for.” From that exercise comes a lot of things, like finding a fantastical place, an RPG setting, a medieval setting that looks like something you see in Rio de Janeiro, for instance.
Because the indigenous people inBlackThorne Keepare based on real indigenous people, Limiar Studios has a real indigenous person doing all the research — Aredze Xukuru, who serves as the studio’s indigenous cultures consultant.
The other thing that we did was like whatThe Lord of the Ringsdid with the elvesand the dwarves — elves are Art Nouveau and dwarves are Art Deco. We started doing that with Brazilian modern art as well. So, if we go to Rio, there are a lot of neoclassic buildings in the city center downtown, and we said, “You know, we know this is not medieval, but Art Deco and Art Nouveau are also not medieval and it worked onLord of the Rings. What can we do with the modern art in Rio and all these other places? What can we do with these influences in our art in our game and turn that medieval as well? And that’s how the art and the style of medieval South America came to life.
Telling an Original Story That Still Hits Close to Home
Q: Could you talk more about how you’re also navigating the story of BlackThorne Keep with that Brazilian medieval angle in mind?
A: BlackThorne Keep is a castle on a frontier where the Euphesians — what we call our Europeans — are colonizers or invaders in the game. They still had a castle, but they tried to make peace with the natives. And, of course, the empire did not approve that. The empire wanted to have the land and in that place there was a truce. There was a deal that they have demarcated the land. They have split the land. One of the points of the game is bringing this kind of conversation into amedieval fantasy settingfor everyone to understand what’s happening in Brazil today.
Today, the indigenous peoples of Brazil have problems with land demarcation. They have problems with big people, big companies invading their lands, and most people don’t know that. So, one of the things we want to do is tell a story that talks a little bit about culture, about architecture, but also about our history and the colonization ofSouth America. It’s something that you cannot just ignore, and it cannot just vanish under the carpet. We need to talk about what happened and why things happened the way they did, but we also think that we can do that in a way that people don’t even feel like they are being informed.
Our idea is that, when people playBlackThorne Keep, they’ll see a fantastical setting, they’ll see a hero, but they will also understand better what happened in South America and what happens today to the native peoples. And a lot of other things. A lot of other matters are commonplace in colonized continents like the Americas, but they were not necessarily a thing back in the twomedieval timesof our world.
Q: Can you discuss some of those low fantasy elements you mentioned and also the incorporation of magic?
A: Our vision for the game is for it to be mainly asword-fighting gamewith RPG elements, of course. But we also want the player to have more power than just swords and sticks. The supernatural elements in the game are represented by what we call the Thorne. It’s an artifact which the main character needs to make a deal with to try to survive the conspiracy that’s being put in place, because the empire doesn’t think it’s nice to be at peace with the natives.
Through this artifact, the player has access to a myriad of powers, but nothing crazy. You won’t go around throwing fireballs. You won’t be able to be a mage, but you have some leeway to go side-by-side with your swordplay. Other than that, we have a little bit of adeck-building systemwhere you collect cards, and you are able to combine cards, equip cards, or use them. You can consume a card for a big effect, or you can equip a card for a passive effect. So we want the player to think, “Do I want this card to be equipped on my build or do I want to save this card, so I can use it when I’m at low health and I can get my full health back again, but the card’s gone?”
You also use these cards to level up. Whenever you level up, you need to sacrifice some cards to put bonuses in your character sheet. And all these cards have different levels, different rarities, so it’s always an important decision which cards you save to use, which cards you consume to level up, which cards you’re going to use whenever you’re cornered against hard opponents. All this will bring more attention and more gravity to thedecisions in the game.
Q: And can you talk a little bit about the RPG elements? Are there choices and things like that in the game?
A: Yes, one of the things that we wanted to bring to the game is the idea that you have different paths, but we also don’t want it to be a200-hour game. We wanted to tell a story that you’re able to start and finish and feel like you understand the whole point of it. So, there are three different endings for the game, depending on different decisions you make. The game also gives you different routes you can take to get to these endings.
There are different places you can go through, and if you find this power of the Thorne on this run, you can get through the monastery. But maybe you did not find this power, so your path is going to be through the river, and at the river you have the mountains and a cave. And through the cave, you can find the power, and then you’ll be able to go through the monastery. So, it’s kind of a little bit likeMetroidvania style, where you can do the same thing again and again and take different paths and find different things and get different endings.
And the other thing is the actual builds you may build with the cards and the different powers of the Thorne and the different weapons — that’s where players will build theircombat style. Maybe some people will get all the cards for the artifact and have a magic build where they can use lightning a lot and buff and heal and just a little bit of swordplay. And other people might just equip all the strength cards and use all the weapons with max damage.
And, of course, there is leveling up as well. That’s where you may allocate the base abilities for the character — your skills. How well can you climb? How well can you use these different kinds of swords, these kinds of weapons? You might allocate points to a skill for a sword so that it consumes less stamina, and then your build is made for fighting with swords. And then there are different decisions you’re going to have to make from the standpoint of your character and from the decisions you make in the game. Those will kind of place the route for how you get to the end. Of course, we want to have more endings than that, but that’s the baseline —three endings, at least.
Q: And how defined as a character is Athos BlackThorne? Is he the same character no matter who plays him or if me and a buddy play him, are we going to have different versions of him?
A: The decisions are going to be a big part of it. You’re deciding how you deal with different points in the game. We have adilemma systemin the game. At some point, the game will confront you with a dilemma, and it’s never black and white, good or bad. There’s no good and bad. The whole point of the game is to show how hard it is to make the right decisions. Most of the time, you don’t know what the best decision is. So, what’s going to happen is that you’ll play the game, and you’re going to make some decisions about these dilemmas, and these dilemmas will take you on different paths and different situations, and your character will evolve based on that.
The story, you’ll discover, is Athos BlackThorne finding out who he is, and the endings reflect that. It’s a story about discovery and, in a sense, self-discovery for the character, but also for the player, because we want the player to be on this journey with him. Thestory of the gameis so we can inform people about all these details and cultural details and social details that we usually don’t see, and a lot of it is based on me and my vision of the culture of South America.
I used to be a guy that loved fantasy fiction,D&D,Lord of the Rings, and I always looked outside of Brazil for these things. So, one day, I was playingD&Dand trying to make up my ownD&Dsetting, and I started looking into our own country and that changed something in my head and I want more people to see that. I want people to find references to their own country here in Brazil. You can find references to your own culture and history. I want people to understand that sometimes you don’t even know your own story, so others will go through that arc. You’ll find out who Athos really is. You’ll find out how he impacts the castle and the lands around it, and hopefully the player will also learn something from it.
Q: I know you mentioned yesterday that you’re still looking for a publisher. Alongside that, what does the road to release look like for you right now?
A: We are aiming for Q1 2027 at the latest. We’ve been developing the game for almost four years now. I started by myself in the first year before starting the studio at the end of 2021. I got my brother and Tony together and two other friends, and they founded Limiar Studios to make this game. Trying to secure funding, we became anoutsourcing studioin Brazil. We have developed a lot of games in Brazil as an outsourcing studio. If we cannot find funding for a publisher or investor, we will keep developing the game as we have been, and it will eventually be released. Of course, if we can find someone to help us on this journey, to invest in us, to believe in what we’re doing, that would be much better.
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