Torment: Tides of Numenera shadow screenshot

Torment: Tides of Numenera is the spiritual sequel to one of the best RPG games of all time - Planescape: Torment. Much like its predecessor it features an in-depth dialogue system, numerous ways of solving each problem, a cast of unique and compelling characters, and some of the most intriguing storytelling in recent times.

As you might imagine, crafting all of that from scratch is a fairly daunting task, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that Torment has been delayed until Q1 2017 in order to ensure it launches as the best game it can possibly be. Here's what the team had to say about the delay and their reasoning behind it:

"Torment has also grown to around 1 million words – bigger than the Bible – and we feel that getting a good quality translation of such a deep narrative experience is very important for a large percentage of our players. Therefore, we will be turning to professional localization services to achieve the best experience possible. With the game content complete, we have already begun locking down our text and breaking it into batches for localization, so progress is already being made.

All said and done, our combined iteration and localization efforts are looking to be a 6-month process. So, we have two paths open to us, a bit of choice and consequence, if you will. Those of you who have been following our updates know we have been hinting towards a late 2016 release, and we could crunch and rush to get the game out around November. But doing so would mean both sacrificing the quality of our localization and would lead to a less polished game for the nearly 100,000 people total who have backed the game. Therefore, in the interests of giving everyone the best experience, we will be releasing Torment in early Q1 2017.

We know it's frustrating to wait a little longer, but we've come this far. I remember the pain of moving the release of Baldur's Gate 1 effectively into January in much the same way, but that ended up being the right move and we all know how fondly it is remembered today. These types of trade-offs are never easy, but from day one it's been our goal to make Torment the masterpiece you deserve."

Its not all "bad" news, however, as InXile has also announced that every single backer will get access to the beta version of Torment, regardless of their pledge. This offer is available right now, and all you need to do is log in with your backer account on the Rewards Page, after which you will be able to grab yourself a Steam key.

To further add on the good news, Torment: Tides of Numenera is now fully content complete. There are still plenty of bugs and rough edges out there (its still in development, after all), but if you're looking to experience the story in its entirety you now have the option to do so. You can find the full list of changes over at the Kickstarter post.

If you're interested in my thoughts on Torment you can find my review right here, and even though its from an earlier version of the beta it should still give you a general idea of what to expect. Long story short, its pretty damn good!

Torment: Tides of Numenera beta screenshot