Planned Release Date: Q1 2027

About This Game

In the old wars, the kingdoms of Nostra burned crystal as if there would always be more. Then the portals opened, and with them came forces no one in Nostra had a name for. Whole lands fell, and the dead did not always stay dead.

It is the year 860 of the Charter. Crystal grows everywhere now. It lights the lamps and fires the forges, and no kingdom guards the roads anymore. The merchants of Brennmarkt pay any blade that will clear them. You are the Rune Warrior, a mercenary with runes in his arm and a price on every road. Those who fall, the carters drag back. For a fee.

Fight in real time. Chain your strikes, raise your Guard at the right moment and answer with a perfect parry. Bandits, deserters and beasts grown from crystal do not wait for their turn.

Etch runes into your abilities. A bolt that splits into three, a burst that raises frost pillars, lightning that jumps from foe to foe: the runes you find decide how the run plays.

Choose your blade and your glyph before you set out and grow a skill tree of your own. What you bring home turns into lasting upgrades in the camp at Brennmarkt, and Writs open new abilities for the next run.

Three regions lie between you and your pay: the river meadows around the bridges, a mountain pass full of old mine shafts and the drowned marshes on the coast. Every map is laid out by hand, with more than one way out and a route you choose yourself.

At the end of each region its masters are waiting, and none of them fights like the last.

Crystalbound runs on the NeoEngine, the engine behind NOSTRA: painted light and shadow, weather, fog that gathers in the valleys and wind that moves the grass.

Crystalbound is set in the world of NOSTRA, long after the story of the dark fantasy RPG by the same solo developer. Play the NOSTRA alpha demo and add it to your wishlist.

Release is planned for Q1 2027. Add NOSTRA: Crystalbound to your wishlist and follow Runecraft Studios to hear first when the demo opens.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

I build NOSTRA: Crystalbound on my own. Generative AI tools helped create the art, the music and parts of the sound; all of it is selected, reworked and put together by hand before it ships.