New Release Appendix: Banner Saga comes to iOS (and Card Dungeon, too)

I thought fighting was what you were *supposed* to do in the mead hall.

After a summer of teasing that the game was close to release, narrative-driven tactical RPG Banner Saga finally arrived for iOS overnight. Even if you didn’t play the PC version of the game, the name might be sounding a horn for you — it was one of the first wave of huge Kickstarter successes back in 2012.

The Banner Saga is an gigantic achievement of game — it’s all hand-animated and looks like a Viking XCOM produced by Don Bluth. It got mostly positive reviews earlier this year on PC, including a generally agreeable nod from our man Phil. I think it’s a remarkable artefact of the strategy games renaissance that we’re in. Not only are strategy games mainstream again, but they’re objects of extraordinary artistic effort — which isn’t really something you could have said about most of the tactical titles from the first golden age of the 1990s.

Banner Saga is a Universal app for iOS and it’s $10 on the App Store.

In other late releases, we’ve got Card Dungeon. We weren’t entirely sure this was going to show up last night but it’s redeemed itself with an early-morning arrival on the App Store where it’s listed at $2. Read my quick write-up from last night for more details about it, and stay tuned for a review soon.

Trailers for both await your indulgence below.

Here’s the Banner Saga trailer. It really is a thing of beauty.

And here’s Card Dungeon — that review should be up tomorrow, or else Monday if I finish the Strategy & Tactics WWII Sandbox one first.