Netflix’s upcoming prequel to Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal is getting a video game spin off. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics revealed at the Nintendo E3 2019 Direct, takes the setting and characters from the beloved film and uses them for a turn based strategy game.
BonusXP, the same studio behind the Stranger Things tie-in games, is the studio working on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics. Unlike those games, however, the new game doesn’t lean onto a nostalgic retro-inspired art style. It instead uses a more modern style that tries to match the look of the puppets used in the film and show.
The turns based strategy genre marks a departure from both BonusXP’s previous work on Stranger Things, as well as the original The Dark Crystal game released in 1983. The former were retro-styled isometric shooters, while the latter was a text-based adventure developed by the legendary Roberta Williams.
The new Dark Crystal game has players taking command of various characters from the classic Jim Henson film and the upcoming prequel series, such as elfin Gelflings, and horrifying Skeksis. They can use these characters to wage battle in the world of Thra.
As for when The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics will arrive on Nintendo Switch, the news is sparse: Nintendo’s announcement made no mention of the game’s release date. That said, it’s likely that the game will launch around the same time that the Netflix prequel series does, which should be later this coming August.
Netflix and the Jim Henson Company first revealed their prequel series, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, back in May of 2017. As with the original, the Jim Henson Company will be using puppetry instead of CGI for the characters. The result, based on the first teaser trailer, is a show that matches the look of the original film quite closely.
