Publisher Hooded Horse and developer Lost Lake Games, a studio made up of industry veterans who have “worked on everything from StarCraft to Guild Wars,” have announced Vaunted, a science-fiction tactical RPG due out in Early Access for PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and Microsoft Store in 2026. It will also be available via Game Pass.
“I’ve loved the games James Phinney has created in the past, and he and his amazing team have another masterpiece here,” said Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender in a press release. “Vaunted brings true innovation to RPG and tactical games. I loved playing it even in an earlier form over a year ago when we first became publisher, and the game has been getting more amazing each day leading up to this announcement.”
Lost Lake Games CEO and co-founder James Phinney added, “We’re thrilled to partner with Hooded Horse. As a game developer, there’s nothing better than seeing people enjoy your game. Striving to build something that really connects with players guides everything we do at Lost Lake, and we see that exact same passion in them.”
Here is an overview of the game, via Hooded Horse:
About
A millennium since the fall of the last galactic empire, chaos reigns supreme. Mercenaries and treasure hunters vie for priceless imperial relics, exploring far-flung ancient ruins and battling ruthless rivals, monstrous aliens, and giant robots in search for the ultimate score. When three mismatched scoundrels return empty-handed from a disastrous expedition, the powerful syndicate that funded them demands answers.
Vaunted is a tactical RPG with explosive action and dynamic combat where turn-based planning is paired with real-time action that opens up unique opportunities. Leap into cover on your turn to dodge enemy counterattacks, set overwatch angles to return the favor as your foes scramble into position, or send enemies flying through the air with the help of a well-placed grenade to riddle them with bullets before they hit the ground.
It all begins with your capture at the hands of a benefactor who has come to collect, curious about the missing return on his investment, and looking for answers with the help of his armed thugs. Tell the story of an expedition gone horribly wrong with the help of three extremely unreliable narrators, where every exposed lie and half-truth opens up new branches, allowing you to switch between their perspectives for wildly different outcomes with every new run:
- Dyse is an incorrigible liar, thief, and con artist with a list of enemies too long to count. An excellent flanker, a mastermind at finding loot, and quick to make friends with Scientists and Outsiders, Dyse always finds the shortest path to the richest treasure.
- Gendril is a tough-talking mercenary with deep underworld contacts and the arsenal to take on any foe. A battle-scarred Fighter and consummate Professional, he knows that, in this business, violence is usually the answer.
- Kyvaath is a powerful young warlock, and the last of her kind. Hailing from a destroyed world, and empowered by cybernetic enhancements, she wields a kind of magic not seen for a millennium. Utterly ruthless and driven equally by ambition and vengeance, she views others as a means to an end.
With Friends Like These…
With their backs against a wall, three ruthless scoundrels will say whatever it takes to make it out with their lives—even if it means betrayal.
You’ll have to work together with a ship full of criminals, mercenaries, and bounty hunters in a desperate bid for survival. Explore their backstories to see how their paths crossed with your intrepid anti-heroes, kit them out with powerful class-based equipment ranging from sentry turrets and jetpacks to sniper rifles and handguns, and build relationships and reputations that might just make the difference between life and death.
Assemble the right party for the task at hand as you tackle a variety of missions and watch as each of your heroes and companions levels up and improves their capabilities individually, falling behind or bounding ahead based on how well they do in combat. Create diverse builds, explore powerful upgrades, and develop unique synergies between the characters at play with every re-telling of the tale.
Say That Again, I Dare You
All three heroes have their own version of events, and though the story continues when companions die, the death of your heroes gives you a chance to rewrite the current chapter from a different perspective. Each brings a different set of circumstances and opportunities for unique conversations alongside new loot, skills, and secrets across the multitude of procedurally generated and hand-crafted missions. Will you power through an ambush in Dyse’s telling of the tale, putting your tactical prowess to the test, or will you stick with Gendril’s version where the trap is never sprung, and you’re able to pick the very same ambushers off from a safe distance instead? Every conversation you have, and every decision you make—and who you make it as—can change how things play out, for better or for worse.
Almost Believable
Even in death, some things carry over—each of your heroes starts to build a reputation based on the decisions they make, potentially impacting future interactions and unlocking new opportunities. What’s more—your story starts to gain credibility as you progress through it, and with each death, you can spend this credibility to unlock new advantages offered by each of the three heroes. Pack more grenades, keep your guns operational for longer, exploit status effects beyond the usual, and generally bolster your capabilities to make friends, and dispatch enemies.
Violence is Inevitable
Whether you’re dealing with the Syndicate, other treasure-hunters, mysterious alien lifeforms, or giant flamethrower-wielding robots, violence is the likely answer to most of your problems, and Vaunted‘s blend of turn-based tactics and dynamic, real-time action ensures you’ve always got options when the bullets start to fly and you find yourself dodging counter-attacks on your turn as you scramble for cover, look down your sights, and take down your foes. Respond to enemy actions in kind, baiting them into traps and reacting to evolving situations to keep your squad alive.
With no initiative orders to worry about, you’re always in control of who goes when, alternating activations with the enemy to go back and forth until the shooting stops. Use the environment to your advantage, not just as cover, but as a weapon in its own right, and as a way to hide and sneak around the battlefield to set up flanking maneuvers and surprise attacks. Make careful use of special abilities, grenades, and even powerful spells as you run, jump, and duck for cover. Pinpoint enemy weaknesses and leverage the ability to aim freely to take them down efficiently and keep the story going.
Vaunted takes the high-intensity action of a third-person shooter and blends it with the calculated tension of a high-stakes turn-based tactical RPG, all while putting you in charge of three extremely unreliable storytellers in the middle of an expedition that went horribly wrong.
Watch the announcement trailer below. View the first screenshots at the gallery.