The Shadowstorm Chronicles II: Shadow's Hand

The Shadowstorm Chronicles II: Shadow's Hand is an upcoming single-player role-playing video game developed and published by Tartarus Studios. It is the second game in the Shadowstorm Chronicles series, after 2008's hugely successful The Shadowstorm Chronicles: Exodium. At a recent Tartarus Studio press conference, the release date of August 15th 2010 was unveiled.

Confirmed new features

 * Seen in trailers have been the Floating City of Alzenira, and the Tomb of Gyothik, both unveiled to be visitable in the game
 * The new ability of mounts, including horses, carriages, dragons, pegasi, gyrocopters, and wyverns
 * Additional travelling methods by ship, dragon, carriage, and more
 * Four new factions, as of yet unconfirmed. Rumors include Dark Dwarves, Goblins, Werewolves, and another human faction
 * Massive open-world gameplay

Production
In mid 2009 Tartarus Studios announced that they had begun production on a sequel to Exodium. J.M Holt, the Tartarus Studios lead, confirmed that with the units sold for Exodium that the studio would have enough money to make the next game bigger. Production was kept under the radar until on May 27th 2010 Tartarus Studios held a conference in Sydney announcing the game's August 2010 release date and demonstrating the exciting features of the game. The trailer for Tartarus' other big 2010 project, a sci-fi shooter Shrapnel was also unveiled. The studio have reportedly increased their staff by 35%, which will hopefully, as J.M Holt says, will make this game better. The game will be launched in Sydney on August 15th 2010 at 10:30 PM, with sales going on mere minutes after. The developers have slated three different packagings with the game; its standard edition, a gold edition with additional DLS, and a collector's edition with even more DLS, a map of Asranathi, An Adventurer's Guide to Asranathi, a comprehensive guide book, a making of Shadow's Hand DVD, and a bronze figurine of the Dark Father; all of which are contained in a large case signed by the entire team. J.M Holt has said: "get the collector's if you want to know a lot more about Asranathi that we don't include in the games".

Initial response to previews
Initial response to the previews for the game have been generally positive. Some mechanics of the game have been changed from its predecessor, and most fans have taken this fine as they have said it will improve the game. At the press conference fans were allowed questions to the team, and one fan asked if there would be any surprises in the game, to which J.M Holt replied: "Of course, we'd not make the game without surprises!".