Shardana is a cooperative survival horror set in an open world: a mysterious interpretation of Nuragic Sardinia. You can play alone or with up to five friends online.
The premise
A storm breaks a Shardana warship off an island nobody on board has seen before. The sea washes a single warrior ashore: you. The island is called Nura. It is fictional, but it looks a lot like Asinara, off the north-west coast of Sardinia, and it has a village of shepherds and fishermen who take you in.
For a few days it feels like a refuge. Then the third night comes, and someone in the village changes.
What you actually do
By day you survive. You gather wood and stone, build a hut with foundations, walls, a door and a roof, fish, hunt, light a fire and drink at the sacred well. You talk to the villagers, who have routines, names and an opinion of you. And they speak Sardinian.
At night the game changes genre. Infected villagers come out to hunt anyone left outside, and each night more of them turn. You can only sleep after sunset, in a bed under your own roof.
From day four, the investigation begins. By day the infected look like everyone else, but something gives them away: eyes that catch the dusk, a sudden cough, a twisted word in the subtitles, a strange object they cannot throw away. You question them, accuse them, treat them. Pick the wrong person and the village makes you pay for it.
Why co-op
Because nights are easier to face as a group, and because the game was built that way from the start: Steam lobbies or a direct IP connection, voice chat, shared quests and reputation. And because whoever loses a duel with an infected villager spends the night as the monster: in co-op, it is up to their friends to stop them.
Why Nuragic Sardinia
Because it is a Bronze Age that games have barely touched: stone towers, giants’ tombs, rock-cut domus de janas, bronze figurines, sacred wells. And because Sardinian folklore has a fear of its own, made of Janas, bogeymen and things said in a low voice. More on that in Exploring Nuragic Sardinia Through a Survival Horror Game.
Where to play
On PC, through Steam, for Windows and Linux. The demo is free and covers your first days on the island, up to the morning after the first night of the sickness. Release date and price of the full game have not been announced yet.
If it sounds like your kind of game, the most useful thing you can do for an independent title is wishlist it: Steam notifies you at launch and shows more of the games people are waiting for.
Shardana
Enjoyed it? Add Shardana to your Steam wishlist and try the free demo.
