Tin Hearts Releases “The Little Soldier Who Dared”
Hi there!
I’m Kostas Zarifis,
Managing Director at Rogue Sun, and I am ecstatic to announce that today we have released “The Little Soldier Who Dared”, a whimsical and remarkable animated adventure narrated by the legendary Stephen Fry, which acts as a prequel to our upcoming narrative puzzle adventure Tin Hearts.
Watch the prequel here:
I first worked alongside Stephen Fry whilst developing the critically acclaimed Fable games at Lionhead Studio, where he first voiced the character ‘Reaver’, an ex-pirate turned businessman, factory owner and the Hero of Skill, in Fable II.
We always had a vision for an expanded story on Tin Hearts, but when our Publisher suggested making a prequel story, with this wild vision of audiobooks and animation, we were in love straight away. However, when they mentioned Stephen as the voice they wanted, we thought it probably wasn’t possible – time has moved on since Fable and our passion project for the last several years seemed a million miles away from our Lionhead days. But Wired were pretty confident and within days we heard Stephen was up for it and willing to record over a weekend between shooting in LA.
The whole project came together in mere weeks – it was the most surreal but exciting part of this development and we feel so lucky to have Stephen involved – he is not only an iconic part of our legacy at Lionhead Studios but has a distinct narrative voice that we hope you will all enjoy.
“The Little Soldier Who Dared” features two sets of characters whose stories are told in parallel, firstly we have Albert and Rose Butterworth who are attending the Stockholm Toy Convention, hoping to find business interest in Albert’s genius toy inventions. Simultaneously the short story follows Albert’s marvellous toys: Gertrude an avid explorer who travels to far-off lands and discovers lost civilisations, and Tommy, a soldier made of tin with a wind-up key in his back – who adventure throughout the convention centre once all of the guests have left the show.
A prequel to the main story of Tin Hearts, “The Little Soldier Who Dared” is based on a letter from Lucien Mantlefell, Secretary of the Guild of Toymakers which can be found in Tin Hearts when it releases on [Xbox / PlayStation and PC] next week. Albert J. Butterworth is the protagonist of Tin Hearts, and we follow his emotional and thought-provoking story of love, loss and compromise whilst marching through 50+ levels of increasingly elaborate puzzles.
Tin Hearts is an immersive narrative puzzle adventure wrapped up in a powerful tale of love and compromise. Players will guide a troop of mischievous tin soldiers through a magical toy-filled world using a variety of whimsical and inventive contraptions to bounce, shoot and glide them to their goal.
Tin Hearts is releasing on 16th May, 2023 for PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
“The Little Soldier Who Dared” only tells the start of the story. An immersive narrative puzzle adventure wrapped up in a powerful tale of love and compromise, Tin Hearts will see players guide a troop of mischievous tin soldiers through a magical toy-filled world using a variety of whimsical and inventive contraptions to bounce, shoot and glide them to their goal.
March through 50+ levels of time-bending, soldier-routing riddles, forge new paths for your toys to follow, and solve increasingly elaborate puzzles to unravel further the emotional, thought-provoking story of Albert J. Butterworth, a genius inventor of Victorian times.