Following 2018’s The Lost Legends of Redwall: Escape the Gloomer, Soma Games will release The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout Anthology, allowing players to jump back into the fantasy world of the late Brian Jacques’ beloved Redwall books. The Scout Anthology combines three separate episodic releases into one continuous game with improvements all around.
The Scout Anthology remasters the adventure game’s lighting quality, as well as controller speed, response, and smoothness. Ahead of the game’s official release, The Mary Sue previewed Act 1 and part of Act 2, and the gameplay experience is truly great. It feels like one of Jacques’s books come to life, with optional quests and riddles at players’ fingertips to add an element of “choose-your-own-adventure.”
Play as Liam or Sophia, a betrothed mouse couple in the Lilygrove Scout Corps., as they attempt to escape a vicious searat attack on their city and reach Redwall Abbey to save the day. Along the way, you’ll be asked to lean on each other, help other citizens, solve puzzles, and survive using your wit as much as your persistence. With your wedding just around the corner, there’s a lot at stake—for you and everyone you love.
What you need to know about Redwall to play The Scout Anthology
In a word, nothing. Although familiarity with Mossflower and the Redwall universe will enrich the playthrough experience of The Scout Anthology, it’s easy to jump into this fantasy adventure with no prior knowledge of the books. As the full title might imply, The Lost Legends of Redwall doesn’t directly adapt Brian Jacques’ stories. Instead, it provides a parallel and interconnected narrative with new characters whose references to existing characters and canon events provide significant depth for existing fans but won’t alienate players who are brand new to the franchise.
In this way, Soma Games has honored Jacques’s work twice over by creating a video game set in the Redwall world and by introducing a new adventure with new characters—something that happens in every book. Redwall has long been approached by fans as an anthology rather than a chronological tale, although they do mostly line up on a single timeline. Still, it’s recommended that you read in publication order.
For the purposes of this preview of The Scout Anthology, I played as Sophia and completed Act 1 and part of Act 2 in approximately five hours. In that time, in addition to the main quest, I collected jars of jam, rescued refugees trapped in catacombs overrun by searats, attempted to solve (and then forgot about) a riddle, and fell in love with the game’s art and music. I initially struggled through the “sneak around enemies” portions of the game, then got better at those quests as I continued to play. This is due, in large part, to the learning curve behind the game’s unique “scenting” mechanic, which I thought was very well executed.
What is “scenting” in The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout Anthology?
There are no humans in Redwall, and its anthropomorphic animal characters frequently navigate situations through smell. In The Scout Anthology, successfully avoiding enemies, tracking down objects, and rescuing allies is largely dependent on three things: tracing familiar scents, identifying new scents, and hiding your own scent. In enemy territory, that means staying downwind, hiding in fragrant bushes and weeds, or dampening your smell by jumping into barrels of flour (or all of the above). Your scent can give you away as easily as your footsteps or your hiding place, so keeping track of your scent and where it’s traveling is as important as staying quiet and out of sight.
Throughout the game, you can use “active scent” to get a below-the-surface look at what’s happening around you. Scent streams are always visible, but in this mode, they are highlighted to reveal smells you know (little icons will join the colored smoke), smells you don’t (question marks will flow from them), and even creatures nearby. In “active scent” mode, you can see outlines of friends and foes, including whether they’re facing you or not, so you can successfully evade or get to them. It’s a cool mechanic that really adds to the immersion, and once I understood it and how to use it effectively, I was able to solve puzzles and get through challenges much faster, with fewer do-overs.
That said, it’s worth noting that the scent icons are small, which may make them difficult to identify for people with low vision.
If you’re looking for a new fantasy game this winter, be sure to check out The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout Anthology. It will be available for PC via Steam (with full controller support), Xbox, and PlayStation, with on sale date TBA.
(featured image: Soma Games)
