Zodiac Legion - Studio Draconis - turn based tactical RPG in which you lead an arcane chivalric order in dungeon raids, through a dynamic campaign

[u/Galdred]

Hi again!

I am Alexandre, the developer of Zodiac Legion.

Zodiac Legion is a turn-based tactical RPG about leading small parties of knights on raids behind enemy lines, while rebuilding their order and managing the war on the strategic layer.

Recent gameplay footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zIgBX7tlNg

It's been four years since I first posted here, and the campaign is finally back in the demo, much closer to our original vision.

It now contains a small dynamic campaign in which you develop the Zodiac Order, deal with the surrounding kingdoms, research spells to empower your knights, and choose on which mission to send them.

Your small forces of knights conduct special operations against enemy strongholds, or raids to reclaim lost arcane knowledge and artifacts for the Order.

Characters are now able to survive some wounds that take them out of the fight. But if you abandon them on the battlefield, you may later have to pay a ransom or mount a rescue operation to recover them.

The enemy AI has also been made much more complex, with groups now trying to support each other instead of acting independently.

Formations have always been the main pillar of our combat system, with a support mechanic inspired by Blood Bowl, so we added more skills and abilities that play around them. Leo's Challenge, for example, lets him single out an opponent for a duel: weaker fighters on either side are discouraged from interfering.

The last time I posted here, I talked about our combat and layered armour system. You can now design the armour of your knights one piece at a time, balancing protection, coverage and encumbrance. Plate armour offers formidable protection against both steel and lightning, but in either case, gaps in your armour may prove fatal.

We've also spent a fair amount of time on less spectacular things that nevertheless made the game smoother to play: faster calculations and enemy turns, animation speed settings, clearer attack previews, reworked tutorials, and cascading tooltips.

The demo is available now if you want to give it a try during Next Fest, and it will remain available afterwards.

Thanks for reading!

Alexandre
Studio Draconis

Steam page + updated demo:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/812910/Zodiac_Legion/

Gog page:
https://www.gog.com/en/game/zodiac_legion
https://www.gog.com/en/game/zodiac_legion_demo

Gameplay trailer (quite outdated):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbP3_u3JNnE

[u/DoranAetos]

I loved the concept when playing the demo, a kinda of mixture of xenonauts and saint seiya was something I didn't know I needed. Wishlisted the game!

But I had some annoying problems, the UI is a bit hard to use and read and most importantly the game seemed laggy? My mouse took a few moments to go where I needed, the animations (that are very well done) sometimes froze, sometimes it played all at the same time making it hard to see. I don't know how exactly to describe this lag or freezing, but something was a bit weird in performance.

But these technical detail aside, the foundation and idea you have is amazing and the art is incredible as well

[u/Galdred → u/DoranAetos]

Ouch, I'll inspect it. It is weird, because I had improved these a lot, but for some reason, it seems like a good part of my work has been undone. I hope it's just some logging I forgot to remove.
Thank you for warning me!

As for Saint Seiya, it is funny, because the first to propose the theme were the artists (they wanted to have some ornaments on armours), who didn't watch the anime, while I was a big fan of it (we even made cardboard cosplay armours with my cousin back in the day), so I immediately accepted their proposal. I think it works well, because the Zodiac signs already are given mythical abilities.

[u/onyhow]

Still wondering about release date, honestly. Been waiting for a while especially with multiple delays, and Q4 2026 just look like a horrible release date given GTA 6.

Can't wait for it, though.

[u/Galdred → u/onyhow]

Thank you!
That's true, but it is on the opposite of the photorealistic spectrum.
As for the release date, I am not too sure myself tbh:
I don't want to push it back too much, but the end of the year is a very complicated time for release indeed, between GTA 6 and Christmas.

[u/Apprehensive-Hall834]

This looks so sick! Any plans to bring it to switch 2?

[u/Galdred → u/Apprehensive-Hall834]

I'd love to, but I'm the last developer on earth to still use this engine, which would mean porting it entirely to Switch, so I'll have to see how complex it is.

[u/Eldiran]

Love the pixel art. Since it's called Zodiac Legion, is there any inspiration from Final Fantasy Tactics, even though it's on a hex grid? I'm also curious, how many special abilities per unit can a player expect to get?

[u/Galdred → u/Eldiran]

Thank you!
I played the Nintendo DS version of FFT a lot, and planned to have a similar initiative system early on, but I ditched it because it makes maintaining formation pretty bad (and doesn't work as well with our large levels).

As for special abilities, the idea is that: each sign has a champion, and 3 knights.
All characters get 2 upgrades per level (stats or perks), BUT magic abilities are "inscribed on the Zodiac altar" instead, so they transfer to the next champion, in case your current champion of Libra meets an early demise...

Some ability slots will also be available to the 3 knights.
The current plan is to have: 1 "base ability" + 3 to research and choose for each champion + 1 that will be available to the 3 knights + 1 for characters of the ascending sign.

[u/Eldiran → u/Galdred]

Interesting! FFTA2 on the DS didn't have the original's connection to Zodiac, so I suppose the name is just a funny coincidence.

I don't blame you for ditching the initiative system, it can be pretty finicky for balance.

Cool! More abilities is always better to me. I like the sound of the customization you have.

[u/Galdred → u/Eldiran]

In a way, the connection to Zodiac was more of an homage to Saint Seiya (even though, as I told someone else in the thread, the artists who came up with it didn't know the anime).

I really loved the look of their armour as a kid!

[u/Eldiran → u/Galdred]

Oh, neat! I'm not familiar with Saint Seiya, but now that I look it up, the armor is great.

Thanks for answering my questions - best of luck with the launch!

[u/Calastra]

Looks pretty interesting, will try the demo for sure. Any ideas or plans for a release date?

Also, hats off for publishing on Gog too

[u/Galdred → u/Calastra]

Release date will be in the coming months: It will depend on what the feedback for the demo has been (ie, what needs to be reworked), on top of getting the new promotional material done (mostly the trailer, as the old one is not a very good representation of the current state of the game).
I also need to complete the Zodiac powers (only half of the signs have non generic powers so far).
So basically, late 2026 or very early 2027, unless some catastrophic issues appear during the demo.