Towers of Aghasba hits early access, roadmap released

Dreamlit Games has announced that Towers of Aghasba is now available in early access, and has also revealed the roadmap for the title.

The team describes its title as “Inspired by the art and fantasy worlds of Studio Ghibli films, along with the cozy island life of Animal Crossing, this gorgeous adventure marries open-world exploration with player creativity.”.

While it’s an early access game, here’s what it’ll be launching with:

• 6 regions to explore
• Exploration across vast open-world lands— climbing, gliding & riding mounts!
• Ruins & relics to discover, unlocking ancient knowledge
• Leisure activities (eg. fishing!)
• 3 types of settlements to build, design & decorate
• 3 types of ecosystems to grow
• 50+ unique creatures
• 150+ decorations to craft
• Singleplayer + co-op gameplay:
• You can invite up to 3 friends to your island to build up your settlements, tend to your ecosystems, take on challenging withered foes, and discover secrets across the world!

In an Official PlayStation blog post, Saiprapanch Adloor, Game Designer at Dreamlit Games, explained why the team decided to launch to Early Access: “This project is an ambitious open-world sandbox developed by a small team, with core mechanics intended to let players shape their island however they like! It’s also one of the first in-development early access titles coming to PlayStation 5. By launching into early access, we can involve our community in the development process, allowing us to better balance, polish, and iterate on these core components— and introduce new content and features based directly on your feedback!”

The roadmap for early access has been released, which you can check out below:

Studio Ghibli’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is “one of the chief artistic inspirations behind Towers of Aghasba”, says the team, and  the Dreamlit Games’CEO, Co-Founder, and Game Director, Khang Le got hold of one of Studio Ghibli’s premiere background artists, Yoichi Nishikawa to “produce hand-painted background textures for the game. Nishikawa is a 20+ year veteran of the legendary Japanese animation studio, with work featured in over 30 films and shows, including The Boy and the Heron, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.”

Nishikawa explains why he agreed to work with the project: “When they first approached me about Towers, I had my doubts. But I decided to make one sample for them anyway. I was surprised when they showed it to me in the game. It’s just like the background for a Japanese anime, but it’s inside the 3D game world! I thought we could make something never-before-seen.”

Nishikawa added: ““Miyazaki-san walked behind me as I was painting some bricks for this game. He said, ‘It’s always hardest to draw the simplest of things.’ He was right. You have to draw every single brick with care. That left an impression on me.””

Towers of Aghasba is in early access now for PC (Steam) and on PS5.