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Fading Echo has caught my eye for a few reasons: its desert punk setting, fast-paced and fluid-looking combat, and its mixture of both Japanese manga and American comics for its visuals. French developer New Tales’ debut title is an impressive-looking action-adventure game, but what has most surprised me about it is seeing so many names attached to it that I recognize from the tabletop industry. But as it happens, that’s no coincidence–from the very beginning, Fading Echo has had a connection to TTRPGs.
“Before joining the video game industry, I used to work in the TTRPG industry,” New Tales co-founder and Fading Echo co-director Emmanuel Obert told me. “So eight or 10 years ago–something like that–I created a TTRPG setting for a group of friends [that] I met in the ’90s and 2000s in the TTRPG space.”
He continued: “At some point each of us was a Dungeon Master for [our home games] and when a campaign was done, it would switch to another Game Master. So when my turn came, I was a big fan–and am still a big fan–of the Chronicles of Amber, but it’s hard to play in worlds that are super well set. It’s hard to move stuff around. And it’s a diceless system. Some people in the TTRPG [space] hate systems [like that]. And so then I thought, ‘Okay, let’s take some inspiration from that [instead]. Let’s build something [new].'”
The original idea of that setting, homebrewed to work with the Marvel Heroic Cortex Plus system, is what would eventually become Fading Echo. When Obert and his fellow co-founders first started New Tales three and a half years ago, they wanted to make games, not just publish them. But they didn’t have access to any existing IP or ideas for their own. So Obert pitched the fantasy world he had made for his friends years prior–the team thought it had “potential” according to Obert, and aspects of it were adjusted to make the setting their own. But aspects of the original world remain in Fading Echo. “The legends that we have in Fading Echo, it’s very much our version of a Princess of Amber,” Obert said.
Lore-wise, Fading Echo takes place on Corel, a lost world discovered by House Kelevra (of which protagonist One and her mother, Rahne, are a part). With advanced machinery and liquid magic, Kelevra attempted to colonize the planet, but their overly aggressive efforts fractured the Corel and doomed those who came to call it home.
To showcase how the planet is fighting back against those seeking to tame it, Fading Echo’s world is built around systemic depth to encourage player expression in combat and traversal, or when interacting with elemental forces, like lava or pollution.
“Water [is] the mana of the game,” studio head Sylvain Sechi told me. “And then we expanded this concept of playing with fluid–not only water but also other fluids like lava, like waste, like corrosion. Each fluid has an elementary reaction when they are affected by each other. So we really pushed for this concept of fluids and how fluids interact with each other–how you can be a fluid and leave fluids behind you. And then we decided to push forward and say, ‘Okay, what if our enemies are also made of fluids?'”
He continued: “And that’s how the action of the game was created. We were not even seeing combat back then. We were thinking about the global systemic action where what we’re trying to achieve is create systems that make the player feel smart. Basically you can anticipate which kind of fluids will react toward each other. Some are pretty easy–you can guess water and lava are going to solidify and create a rocky platform which you can jump on top of. So for combat, there is never one solution. [It’s all about] systemic interaction–[what] can I create by combining fluids or by using fluids that are in their environment or [by] using my own fluids. And if you’re smart, some combat [encounters] can be pretty easy. And at the end of the day, if you run out of fluids or you do not think of some smart interaction [that you can] do, you can always hack and slash with your spear.”
“Generally, the reason people play TTRPGs is because it’s a game system that allows you to have an urgency and an autonomy of choice that is [rarely] seen in any other games,” Sechi said. “Especially [when there’s] a dice system, [which can] go pretty crazy. And this feeling of freedom in a game system is something we love. And we tried to recreate [that feeling].”
From that TTRPG-inspired baseline, it was a hop, skip, and a jump for the New Tales team to seek input from other tabletop voices. Critical Role’s Matthew Mercer and Laura Bailey now voice major characters in the game, game master and actor Jasmine Bhullar (DesiQuest, Coffin Run, Battle for Beyond) joined the team as the writer (and voice of Rahne!), and actor Samantha Béart (Baldur’s Gate 3, The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow) was cast as One. You may not roll dice or build decks in Fading Echo, but a lot of people who love tabletop roleplaying games have had a hand in shaping what this game is.
“We met Jasmine because we were all French peeps [and we knew we wanted Fading Echo] to be an Echoverse, [a] multiverse–it needs to talk to a large number of people,” Obert said. “And then at the same time, we said, ‘Okay, let’s try to get some of the Critical Role peeps.’ We harassed them every day. At some point, they agreed and probably said, ‘Just stop contacting us.’ [laughs] I’m joking. We were super lucky to get them. And Samantha–it was a super funny story when we met them in London. I think we were both trying to impress each other.”
Béart was cast as One, a would-be hero on a quest to discover who she is and how she might save her home, the floating islands of Corel. One can wield the power of water, summoning waves and creating thunderous effects. She can also transform into a cute water droplet-looking slime that can traverse tiny cavities, dive into water to slither beneath enemies or obstacles, and descend onto enemies with an explosive splash.
“I have actually played a bit of the game,” Béart told me. “[New Tales has] given me a Steam key. [Which is] perfect. The worst thing [for an actor] is when [the game] comes out and you go, ‘Oh, I would’ve done that so differently if I’d known that’s what it would’ve played like.'”
Béart told me that having a chance to play the game and see One in action has already helped them better prepare for the role, pointing out the symbol on One’s head matching her “face” when she’s a water droplet. It was a detail that I didn’t originally notice–it’s small–but it unifies One’s character. As a humanoid warrior, One is drawn with rigid angles and rough edges, akin to characters from US comic books back in the day. But as a droplet, she transitions art styles, gaining a rounder and more cutesy aesthetic that one might expect in a Japanese manga. I went into my conversation with Béart theorizing that both forms had radically different personalities or voices to bring attention to the two forms in one body. But Béart said that they reached a different conclusion after playing the game–those triangle symbols positioned like a smiling face exist in both of One’s forms, representing a constant to characterize her.
“That [expression/symbol] is obviously the core of who she is–that’s what it says to me,” Béart said. “[It is] lovely to play someone who isn’t destruction and fire [in a] video game. As the protagonist, you tend to smash things up, but water is an element I’ve never explored in this medium, so that’s really, really, really exciting to me to see what we can do with that exactly.”
Béart has had a major impact in shaping One. The way they described building the character alongside the developers and being welcomed to interact with the team sounded closer to what’s typically reserved to select actors in film or television or theater, not video games. “It is just nice to have that deep knowledge before you can even get started,” Béart said. “There was no NDA [and I] still managed not to upset them by spilling a secret. Crazy, isn’t it? You don’t have to threaten us with a document. I was in the Discord. I can see what everyone’s doing.”
They continued: “It sort of reminds me of early days of Lucasfilm where they had everyone in this big warehouse and you could go over and see what props were doing and props could go and talk to the script writers and they could talk to the cinematographer and everyone was [working together]. It’s true collaboration rather than the siloed way the games [industry] tends to work. I think it’s a small miracle each game gets made. It’s difficult, what [studios] are doing. And when the actor understands that, that really helps us in our relations to the developers.”
Comparing their time with the work they did for Karlach, Béart said, “[In] Baldur’s Gate [3], [the actors] didn’t technically meet until after the game, or if you came out for a break and bumped into each other. I haven’t recorded [for Fading Echo] yet. So the plan is to have a table read with the others. So I imagine there’ll be some chemistry tests and there might be some tweaking depending on how those are read, which is again, unheard of in video games–actually, I say that, but I think Blizzard actually does that. I think Blizzard are one of the few that actually do that. [New Tales] takes away some of the best of what they’ve experienced in this [industry].”
“I’d like to see this more often in games, because we do it in film and TV and theater,” Béart said. “Recently, in the marketing part of it, the actor has been a nice extra to have–something to plug in at the end as opposed to [being an] integral [part]. We’re certainly an asset to your marketing campaign. Fans will connect with us. If [your game] is played for narrative, they will connect with the actors. It’s kind of obvious. It’s why film actors do junkets. But also they might be stuck with me for some time. They want to feel me out, see if I’m okay. [Which is] very smart. What if I turned out to be a nightmare or I was a bigot or otherwise my values don’t line up with theirs? They’d be in real trouble.”
And Béart very well could be attached to this team for a while. Though this outcome primarily rides on Fading Echo’s reception and success, there seems to be an implication that this is merely the first game in series that will tackle a multiverse of locations. Within the narrative of Fading Echo, One exists in an Echoverse of realities, and you’ll traverse a few of them in the game–as seen in the reveal trailer, One travels from her primarily desert reality to one that’s entirely underwater at one point.
Within the Echoverse, there are specific prime realities that act as starting points from which variable realities, known as mirrored realities or Shadows, can spawn. Corel is a prime reality that is rich in resources when it’s first discovered, and since it is untouched, there are no variable realities to consider. House Kelevra sees this as an opportunity: They can shape Corel however they want, manipulating it to birth the type of realities that they want. As a result, Corel’s various Shadows are reflections of House Kelevra’s exploitation more than anything else, providing insight into the crimes and awful actions performed by One’s house. As One goes on her journey, she is plunged into places that are familiar, but substantially different based on a twisted choice made by someone else.
Going to other universes and living foreign experiences is also part of why New Tales turned to Bhullar. “So I think [pulling from other industries] gives us some opportunities that we would never see or never think about [normally],” Obert said. “[We’re a French studio] working with a writer born in the US who’s an Indian person that lives in the US–they have a [different] way of building up a character or building story or writing dialogues [than we do]. We are not able to do that on our own–it’s impossible. You need to have those diverse perspectives to do what you don’t know, especially if you want to create a multiverse–you need as many people who think in different ways as possible.”
He continued: “We like the idea of having some people that come from the same craft but from a different industry and bring something very different. And Jasmine never worked on or wrote for a video game before. And I think she’s bringing something super fresh and super new to it and getting a fresh vibe.”
“Our composer didn’t come from video games [and] our cinematic team don’t come from video games, so it’s a bit harder to integrate [their talents] at the beginning, but they bring creative DNA to our source that makes it unique and special,” Sechi added. “It’s enabling creativity and empowering innovation.”
All of which is to say: Fading Echo sounds like it’s going to be a pretty cool game, and I can’t wait to try it out. The action-adventure game is scheduled to launch for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC. No release window has been announced yet.
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