Wingspan Publisher Announces New Game Inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The publisher of Scythe and Wingspan has announced a new project – an ambitious open-world roguelike adventure game. This week, Stonemaier Games announced Vantage, a new "open-world, cooperative, roguelike adventure game" made for 1-6 players. The game features players crashing onto a distant planet and isolated from other players. It's up to players how they want to explore and interact with the world, and they can only communicate with and support other players from afar. One of the game's primary influences was the open-world nature of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its use of distant landmarks as places of interest meant to draw players towards. 

Mechanics for Vantage have mostly been left unrevealed, but a newsletter by Stonemaier Games explained some of the basics for movement in the game. When players are at a location, they pull a card from the box and place it upright in a card holder in front of them, which represents their first-person viewpoint. A compass on the card provides the number of locations that are easily accessible; players can move in cardinal directions not indicated on the map, but they'll have to use visual clues to determine whether their character can traverse the terrain. The game will contain 1,700 cards, all of which represent discoverable locations. 

Stonemaier Games is perhaps best known as the publisher of Wingspan, the popular engine-building game about birds. It's also published several other "medium to medium-high" complexity games such as Scythe, Viticulture, and Apiary. 

It's almost certain that Vantage will be one of the most-discussed tabletop games when it's officially released. Stonemaier Games estimates a 2025 launch and release date for the game. Fans can sign up to Stonemaier's newsletter for more updates on the game.