Hi everyone,

The Council’s first episode is now free to play for all players on all platforms! The narrative adventure game, which redefined the genre with RPG mechanics and consequences for every choice, can also be purchased as a Complete Season for players looking to continue the captivating story further.

In The Council – Episode 1: The Mad Ones, you set off on your journey with Louis de Richet on Lord Mortimer’s private island, in an attempt discover the fate of your missing mother before it’s too late. Joining you are several high-profile guests, including Napoleon Bonaparte and President of the United States of America, George Washington. The strange nature of this private reception goes beyond just the prestigious guests – and each of the colorful cast seems to have their own hidden agendas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkVFsU0pDgg
The Council has received acclaim from players and press alike, thanks to its deep, impactful story bringing together intricate characters, shocking twists and smart writing. The innovative RPG concept brings the genre beyond its boundaries and allows for meaningful choices with impactful consequences.

The Council’s first episode is now available for free on all platforms. And get 70% off the complete season until March 30!

Focus Home Interactive's Spring Sale are also live on Steam - get up to 75% off on the publisher page on a selection of top selling games in the coming days!

Make sure to wishlist your favorite titles there not to miss any promotion!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/287630/The_Council/

Play the full season of The Council now! The Complete Season including the final episode, Checkmate, is now released.

Take the last steps on Louis’ path – and decide the fate of the world.

The Complete Season and fifth episode of The Council, the narrative adventure game redefining the genre with RPG mechanics and consequences for every choice, releases today! The Full Season Launch Trailer is the perfect occasion to look back at the strongest moments that punctuated the full season, and everything you’ve been through since the first episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqUO7t2yUj0
The Council has already enthralled players and press alike with a deep and captivating story featuring intricate characters and smart writing. The innovative RPG concept brings the genre beyond its boundaries and allows for meaningful choices with impactful consequences.

Episode 5: Checkmate puts all your decisions, mistakes, and victories at the fore as Louis’ alliances, enemies, and family all collide for a climactic confrontation. Who will win, and can the De Richets survive the island in the end?

Play the full Season now and finish your adventure in The Council Episode 5: Checkmate, where kings fall, pawns rise, and the choice, as always, is yours.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/287630/The_Council/

We welcome you again to Lord Mortimer’s island. Please, help yourself to some wine.

Today, the topic of discussion is the RPG systems of The Council, and how they complement the narrative adventure genre.

The Council is a game of consequences - you decide who to help or hinder, which path to follow and how to survive on the island. This is not as simple as binary decisions at key moments in the story. Louis de Richet’s capabilities are entirely at your discretion, and how you use them will shape the story as much as anything else.

The first major decision in this area is your class. Early in the story you’ll be able to characterise Louis as a smooth-talking diplomat, experienced occultist, or cunning detective. This determines your starting selection of abilities, and makes advancing those cheaper - but you aren’t locked into that class skill tree. Experience points are given out at the end of each quest, meaning several times each episode.

Whatever your class choice, you’ll have all 15 skills to pick from. They range from knowledge of politicians or religious figures the world over to manual dexterity for lockpicking and the raw strength of a boxer. Every skill unlocks its own paths while exploring the mansion or is usable in confrontations and opportunities to get the upper hand on your fellow guests.

Your abilities are not infinite, it takes effort to manipulate and charm your way to the top. The more adept you are at a skill, the less of your Effort Points it will cost to use. This is affected by the difficulty of the task at hand, while a number of special Talents and Items are there to help you as well.


Talents are extra, passive bonuses that Louis unlocks as you progress through the story. There’s a massive range available, with numerous different triggers and effects, and you can see all of them in the menu, letting you aim for the ones you prefer. Meanwhile, Items are acquired throughout the game via exploration. They have powerful effects like refunding effort points, or making skill uses free - but they’re rare, so use them wisely and only in urgent circumstances.

The Council is not just a narrative adventure - the RPG aspects of your class, skills, talents, and items control your fate as much as any other decision.

The Council Episode 5: Checkmate releases December 4 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC digital stores. The Complete Season contains all five episodes.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/287630/The_Council/

Welcome, all, to Lord Mortimer's island.

Please join us in the small salon for a little more information on The Council, and how one of the key mechanics in the game will work - the Confrontation System.

The Confrontation System in The Council is one of the ways that we uniquely twist the narrative adventure game, and is instrumental in deciding how your story will play out.

In narrative games, the vast majority of your decisions come down to how well you understand the way the other characters in the game think, and how you can manipulate your dialogue to get what you want out of them.

In The Council, encounters with goals at the end of them are called Confrontations and are essentially battles of wit between the player and the character they are talking to. During a Confrontation, players will go through several steps of a conversation, while trying to be as persuasive as possible. These Confrontations will have a direct effect on the story and are one of the most pivotal parts of the game.

The Confrontation could have as little as two phases in it, for quick arguments (such as if you have to convince somebody not to shoot you), to as many as five or six phases, or maybe more! Along with the steps, you will have a set number of failures.

When you say something to upset the opponent or use a Skill that your opponent is immune to (which will be expanded on in a future dev blog), you will lose one of these failures, which is called a Blunder. Lose all of your Blunders, and you fail the confrontation, which can lead to drastic changes in the storyline.

You'll have a lot to help you avoid those Blunders, however, as you'll take everything you've learnt about the characters into the Confrontation with you. Everything you've learnt up to that point will be valuable in a Confrontation, so don't forget to search everything, and interrogate everyone, to learn what you need to.

In each phase, you will have to choose from a variety of options to best persuade your opponent of what you want. For example, you may want to convince them to give you the letter in their possession. You'd first need to convince them that you're trustworthy, and then that you're worthy of holding on to the letter.

This would be the first two steps of the Confrontation. In the final step, you would want to convince them to then give you the letter. This last step is repeatable until you either manage to convince them by picking a favourable solution, or you run out of Blunders.

As Confrontations are so important, don't hesitate to use Consumables or Skills to get the result you need. You never know what could happen otherwise - and the consequences are permanent.

The Council Episode 5: Checkmate releases December 4 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC digital stores. The Complete Season contains all five episodes.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/287630/The_Council/

Hello, and welcome once again, to Lord Mortimer’s island.

Today, we will be taking lunch in the Red Salon, and discussing Choice in The Council, and how your decisions will live with you for the entirety of the game.

The world of 1793 is a dangerous one, an aristocratic island filled with world leaders and powerful aristocrats.

In your investigations, conversations and confrontations in The Council, you’ll most likely have to take charge and make choices about how best to proceed. Will you retire for the night, or stay up and investigate the island? Will you help somebody that asks for your help getting information out of someone, or refuse to do so, and potentially lose a key ally on the island?

In one such situation in The Council, you’ll have the opportunity to help somebody out of a sticky situation, and should you choose to aid them, you will open access to a whole new storyline in the game.

Should you fail, due to failing a Confrontation or not having enough points in a skill, you could potentially miss out on this whole path. Getting knocked out and physically injured is a very real possibility in The Council, and some decisions could lead to entire swathes of the game being changed into a wildly different experience based on your playstyle and the choices you have made.

This whole situation could be missed by choosing not to investigate a room when offered the opportunity, and instead could lead to an entirely different set of consequences later on. Any choices you do make will not only impact the current chapter but all subsequent chapters as well.

These permanent choices and the branches they will create are key in deciding what will happen during your playthrough, and the obstacles you will face throughout. Should you receive a physical injury, it will stick with you for the rest of the game.

Choose wisely, your fate is in your hands, and you never know what could happen.

The Council Episode 5: Checkmate releases December 4 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC digital stores. The Complete Season contains all five episodes.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/287630/The_Council/

The Council’s Complete Season and Episode 5: Checkmate downloadable December 4 on all platforms!

Louis de Richet must take the final steps on deciding his path – and the fate of the world

Complete Season and fifth episode of The Council, the narrative adventure game redefining the genre with RPG mechanics and consequences for every choice, release December 4 on PS4, Xbox One & PC digital stores. See two exclusive new screenshots of episode 5 and look back at the key moments that punctuated the whole season!

Episode 5: Checkmate brings all your decisions, mistakes, and victories to the fore as Louis’ alliances, enemies, and family all come together for a climactic confrontation. Who will win, and can the De Richets survive the island in the end?

The Council has already enthralled players and press alike with a deep and captivating story featuring intricate characters and smart writing. The innovative concept brings the genre beyond its boundaries and allows for meaningful choices with impactful consequences.

Finish the adventure in The Council Episode 5: Checkmate, where kings fall, pawns rise, and the choice, as always, is yours.

If you already downloaded the Complete Season or the Season Pass, you can play Episode 5 on December 4.

The Council Episode 5: Checkmate, releases December 4 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC digital stores. The Complete Season contains all five episodes.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/287630/The_Council/

Dear all,

It’s been one week since the release of The Council - Episode 4: Burning Bridges. We would like to thank you, at first, for all your support and feedback.

Today, we’re launching a hotfix which addresses some issues that you’ve raised to us since the release. You can find below the details.

Hotfix content:

• The balcony door in Elizabeth Adam’s room is now inaccessible. Players will no longer be stuck.This fix is not retroactive, and if you have had it occur, you will need to restart the episode.
  
• Characters will no longer be resurrect by a bug.
  
• Players that were previously unable to generate save files and log files on specific setups are now able to create these files. These files will not work with Steam Cloud Saves.

Louis de Richet is thrown ever deeper into the web of intrigue… Complete Season and Season Pass holders can play today, full release on September 27.

The fourth episode of The Council, the narrative adventure game redefining the genre with RPG mechanics and consequences for every choice, releases today for all Complete Season and Season Pass owners. Episode 4: Burning Bridges sees allegiances explained, rivalries come to a head, and the ghosts of the past begin to catch up to the inhabitants of the island. Your decisions will haunt you as you decide the fate of Louis, Mortimer, and the world itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8DCLyFEeXU
The Council has already enthralled players and press alike with a deep and captivating story featuring intricate characters and smart writing. The innovative concept brings the genre beyond its boundaries and allows for meaningful choices with impactful consequences.

Characters and their fates are up to you, and shown here is just one way things can go – how will your endgame begin?

Burning Bridges releases September 27 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Complete Season owners on Steam and consoles, and Season Pass owners on consoles can play Episode 4 now with a two day head start, as well as early access to the next, last episode.

Note that Episode 1: The Mad Ones, is required to play Episode 4. The Complete Season will include a total of five episodes, with Episode 5 releasing end of 2018.

The Council’s fourth episode, Burning Bridges, releases September 25
Louis de Richet is thrown ever deeper into the web of intrigue…

The fourth episode of The Council, the narrative adventure game redefining the genre with RPG mechanics and consequences for every choice, releases September 25. Discover the first screenshots of this new episode!

Episode 4: Burning Bridges sees allegiances explained, rivalries come to a head, and the ghosts of the past begin to catch up to the inhabitants of the island. Your decisions will haunt you as you decide the fate of Louis, Mortimer, and the world itself.

The Council has already enthralled players and press alike with a deep and captivating story featuring intricate characters and smart writing. The innovative concept brings the genre beyond its boundaries and allows for meaningful choices with impactful consequences.

Witness Louis’ first encounter with the catacombs beneath Mortimer’s island in new screenshots. Characters and their fates are up to you, and shown here is just one way things can go – how will your endgame begin?

Owners of the Complete Season or the Season Pass can play Episode 4 on September 25. Episode 4 will be available as a single episode two days later, on September 27.

The Council Episode 4: Burning Bridges, releases September 25. The Complete Season will include a total of five episodes, with the last episode releasing at the end of 2018.

The third episode of The Council, the narrative adventure game redefining the genre with RPG mechanics and consequences for every choice, releases today!

Episode 3: Ripples continues the story of Louis de Richet as plots are laid bare, characters reach their breaking points, and an unexpected, terrifying truth is uncovered. It will take all of Louis’ influence to prevent the situation from getting out of hand.

The Council has already enthralled players and press alike with a deep and captivating story featuring intricate characters and smart writing. The innovative concept brings the genre beyond its boundaries and allows for meaningful choices with impactful consequences.

Who will you side with? Who can you trust? Your fate is still yours to make.

The Council Episode 3: Ripples, is available today.

The Complete Season will include a total of five episodes, with new episodes releasing regularly in 2018.