According to Wikipedia, a black legend is a historiographical phenomenon in which a sustained trend in historical writing of biased reporting and introduction of fabricated, exaggerated and/or decontextualised facts is directed against particular persons, nations or institutions with the intention of creating a distorted and uniquely inhuman image of them while hiding their positive contributions.
Black Legend, the next game developed by Warcave, is nothing like that. Or is it?
Could it be that main villain Mephisto, a great alchemist that spent too much time in quarantine (this isn’t true) and went haywire, is actually doing something good? Is this why he shrouded the entire city of Grant in a mysterious fog, turning it into a doomed place? Or why he has an army of minions that attacks anyone who dares to approach the city walls? It’s hard to believe, but guess we’ll have to play the game to find out!
Mystery is at the heart of Black Legend, which draws inspiration from 17th century Dutch folk tales. In-between strategic battles with the evil (or are they?) forces of Mephisto, you will get to explore the city and piece together stories from the few survivors, items and locations to discover the truth behind the situation.

The game is described as a dark, immersive turn-based strategy RPG and they’re not kidding around with the strategy part. First of all, Black Legend features 15 different character classes who all have specific gear and use different combat abilities. Second, the turn-based combat is centered around the ancient medical concept of Humorism. The goal is to use your skills to create an instability in the bodies of your enemies, and then capitalise on it with a devastating catalyst attack.
Putting together your band of mercenaries will be interesting to say the least, and there’s plenty of mythological menaces that need a good slaying. From the architecture and weaponry through the enemy design and monsters from old wives tales, the team has been massively inspired by 17th century history. They did plenty of research in Golden Age cities like Bruges (which was a mistake, as everyone knows Ghent is tons better) to enrich their fantasy world with authentic historical elements.

Embracing national culture and history like this is a clever way to qualify for tax shelter support in the future, and the added narrative elements will also score you points when applying for Creative Europe Media support. We’re not saying you should tweak the content of your game in order to appeal to these support measures, but this is an excellent example of how you can stay true to your creative vision while keeping those in mind.

To our knowledge, Black Legend is also the first Belgian game that’s openly been announced to hit both the PS5 and Xbox Series. Next to those, the game will also launch on pc, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One in early 2021.