With Baldur’s Gate 3 and Ghost of Tsushima being two of the biggest RPG successes in the last few years, it’s a great time to be a fan of the genre.

Ghost of Tsushima proved to audiences that massive open world games could be innovated beyond the typical “checklist” formula with just a few simple tweaks.

Meanwhile, Baldur’s Gate 3 showed that a D&D-style party-based RPG is something that could resonate with players if properly invested in.

What do you get when you combine the two? Well, you get Shadow of the Road.

Shadow of the Road is an RPG set in 1800s Japan at the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate. You play as a party of characters whose stories are intertwined by this political turmoil.

“Experience a country at a pivotal crossroads, torn between its cherished ancient heritage and the relentless march of modernization,” the Steam page description reads. “Which side will emerge victorious? The fate of Japan hangs in the balance.”

“Take part in a daring mission led by Tokugawa’s own spymaster, who has recruited the rōnin, Satoru and Akira, to protect a mysterious boy with immense, uncontrollable powers.”

Similar to Baldur’s Gate 3, and also other tactical RPGs, combat is conducted in a turn-based fashion. Your party has varied abilities to allow them to triumph on the battlefield, but there’s also a big social element to the way you conduct each encounter.

It sounds like diplomacy and choosing the right dialogue will be a key success factor in Shadow of the Road, a must-have in any role-playing game.

As the store description puts it: “Every choice you make will guide your characters along unique and captivating paths: form new bonds, sever lifelong friendships, or mend fractured family ties.”

There’s currently no release date set for Shadow of the Road, but we’ll keep an eye out for it. It’s being published by Owlcat Games, developers of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. It sounds like a match made in heaven.