“Welcome, outsider, to this distant land
of fire and water and all-conquering sand...”
Wayfarers: Call of Osiris reignites the love of classic archeological adventure! Jack and Leila Dawes, a married American couple, travel to Egypt and get caught in the middle of a war between age-old deities. In this story-driven third-person adventure, you take control of the soldierly Jack and challenge the evil god Set, with the help of your wife, the erudite Leila. Set had killed Osiris, the rightful and benevolent ruler of the underworld, and taken the throne for himself, which simply will not do. Jack is a fighter, Leila a scholar, together they’ll fight Set, and tighten his collar!
In the quest to help Osiris reclaim the throne, you’ll raid tombs and (fun!) chart edgy underworlds, jump and cross chasms, solve puzzles, shoot bad guys and monsters, defeat giant bosses, and finally kick the evil Egyptian god’s butt so hard he’ll cry for his mummy! This game offers a unique blend of the new and the ancient, where you visit faithfully recreated temples and pyramids in modern-day Egypt, as well as delve into magical underworlds where everyday rules no longer apply. This single-player-only game offers 12 to 15 hours of story and gameplay, with the added bonus that you can return to levels to find more collectibles or change the difficulty.
You’ll explore real temples above ground and the interiors of famous pyramids, as well as vast underworlds that lie inexplicably beneath them. Here, magic seeps into reality and makes the impossible possible. You’ll traverse cliffs and slopes, cling to edges and ledges, leap between platforms suspended over endless chasms, and clamber over gigantic statues. Often, you’ll avoid deadly traps, a hallmark of the genre. Jack and Leila are regularly in danger of being crushed, burned, cut in half, pushed into an abyss, or forever stay trapped in stone chambers. You’ll also solve both old-fashioned and modern logic and environmental puzzles. Some are decidedly ancient Egyptian in nature, and were inspired by their stories and beliefs.
You’ll be immersed in varied combat with real weapons against several unique groups of enemies that require different approaches. For example, the human soldiers prefer shooting from cover, while the mummies require the player to remain mobile. You’ll also be challenged by huge bosses. Make sure you’ve upgraded your weaponry!
The player’s character is Jack Dawes, a maverick U.S. special forces operative who gets burdened with an insidious disease. His wife is a linguist and expert on ancient civilizations who suggests they take a vacation to Egypt. Soon they are both afflicted by a nasty curse sent by the ancient deity Set. In an attempt to remove the calamity, they scour a series of locations in modern Egypt and visit their mythical underworlds, but an equally dramatic battle unfolds inside their minds. There is humor, there is drama, there is bickering and reconciliation… The question is, how scarred will they emerge from this, and what parts of themselves will they lose in the process?
You’ll explore a series of famous pyramids and temples, from the Great Pyramids of Giza, to the temples at Karnak, Edfu, Abu Simbel and the Valley of the Kings. There’s walking through the picturesque city of Abydos ... diving with sharks near the tourist resort of Sharm El Sheik... and taking on guards outside Egyptian Museum in Cairo. You’ll also amass dozens of collectibles from ancient Egypt, explained in detail in the encyclopedia on Jack’s phone. We’ve even hired a real professor from Cairo University to translate important dialogue into proper ancient Egyptian.
Combining indigenous folk elements with Western influences, the music is the work of Grammy-nominated composer Austin Wintory. Jack Dawes is voiced by the well-known and well-loved Troy Baker, while Leila has been blessed with the honeyed voice of the amazing Krizia Bajos. We also used professional actors for motion capture, while the cutscenes were supervised by award-winning local directress Urša Menart.
Call of Osiris launches its Kickstarter campaign!
It’s been a long and eventful, sometimes arduous journey since we beget Wayfarers: Call of Osiris some five years ago. It was called The Old Kingdom back then, and it was much more of a pure shooter, set in Egypt that’s been overrun by bloodthirsty monsters under the influence of the evil god Set.
That shooter gradually transformed into what Call of Osiris is today: a single-player third-person action adventure that’s equal parts exploration, traversing, combat, puzzle-solving and story. You’ll visit famous pyramids in temples in Egypt, delve deep into their mystical underworlds, battle human and supernatural enemies.
You’ll also evade deadly traps, jump over bottomless chasms, seek out secret chambers, open chests, gather collectibles, and follow an involving story about a married couple who gets caught in a war between ancient deities.
Jack's weaponry is quite varied, from handguns to automatic rifles to shotguns to a bazooka, and he's able to upgrade each piece in exchange for the silver and other collectibles.
There’s no shortage of platforming and traversing in Call of Osiris, and it’s not as automated as in many modern titles. For example, the player needs to keep the balance on beams and move carefully while on short, narrow ledges lest he plummets to his doom.
Call of Osiris is wholly single-player and story-driven, with plenty of cinematic cutscenes featuring Troy Baker as Jack Dawes and Krizia Bajos as Leila Dawes.
Our two heroes visit many iconic sites in Egypt, from the Great Pyramid of Giza and the nearby Sphinx to the magnificent temples in Karnak, Abydos and Edfu.
If the words and videos made you giddy with anticipation of some good old-fashioned tomb raiding and exploring uncharted regions ;), consider backing us on Kickstarter! The campaign is live now, and here's a handy link.
You may also want to check out the dev diary articles at Indiedb.com.
A new story trailer for Wayfarers: Call of Osiris has been released, containing excerpts from various cinematographic cutscenes and gameplay snippets.
Recording voices for Call of Osiris was a lot of fun!
Designing large levels can be a challenge even with a large team, let alone with a couple of people. So how did we approach creating the often huge levels...
The article details how we set about creating both surface and underground levels in Call of Osiris.
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This reminds me a bit of the wonderful "Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine". What was great about that wonderful (I cannot stress enough how much I still love that game) was that supernatural crap was sparingly and cleverly embedded in an overall realistic setting. The teaser trailer seems like the "Nub's Tomb" level, which was overall disappointing (like the other two ensuing levels) because of the unrestrained amount of crazy stuff shoved in. Yours looks like a beautiful game, but please tone down the supernatural crap and keep it realistic with plenty of clever puzzles (see "The Talos Principle" or the promising "In The Valley of Gods") and good action. Please, do not go down the same road as garbage-can games like "IJ: The Emperor's Tomb" or the Tomb Raider's franchise. That has nothing to do with archaeology or clever video-game storytelling.
Hey :), thanks for the tip. The game is a mixture of the "natural" and the supernatural, but it's all quite grounded in reality, so you won't be flying around or battling enemies with a flaming sword. There are, however, fantastical undergrounds with resurrected enemies, but these don't have outrageous abilities. Hope you like the game when it releases!