Stop me if you've heard any of this before. Elves, humans, and dwarves are in a life-or-death struggle against orcs, goblins and the undead. I assume you stopped me.
Sarcasm aside, I should be fair. Faulting a high-fantasy game for having the trappings of high fantasy is like faulting a puzzle game for having puzzles in it. I for one like elves, dwarves, orcs and goblins. Like so many others, I grew up on a steady diet of fantasy. If it's wrong to battle skeletons with an elven mage, then I don't want to be right.
Chaos Chronicles is the next game to fall into rank alongside other high-fantasy titles. Little information has been released about the title so far, but from what I've seen, it looks promising. First, there's the story. Chaos Chronicles' take on high fantasy imagines a world where the good guys lost. Elves, humans and dwarves are relegated to small islands, while the triumphant hordes of slobbering evils — the aforementioned orcs and undead — roam freely across the continent that the more civilized beings once called home. Now it's time to take your once-great cities back.
How this will play out is yet to be explained. All that's been revealed so far is that Chaos Chronicles will be a classic turn-based role playing game. I take that to mean a tactical, old school RPG that requires more thinking than doing. Think Baldur's Gate, not Diablo. The fact that it's being put together by bitComposer gives me some confidence that they'll be able to do the tactical RPG thing right. They're the studio behind the Jagged Alliance sequel — the third in a beloved tactical strategy series for the PC.
Look out for Chaos Chronicles next year. It looks like it has potential, especially if you like orcs and dwarves.