Torment: Tides of Numenera

The pitch

Torment: Tides of Numenera is inXile Entertainment's spiritual successor to 1999's Planescape: Torment, crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2013 and released four years later in 2017. It trades Planescape's Sigil for Monte Cook's Numenera setting — a far-future Earth so old that magic and science have become indistinguishable — and keeps the same core promise: a story-first, isometric RPG built around dialogue, philosophy and consequence rather than combat.

The comparison the game invites, and can't escape

This game asked to be compared to Planescape: Torment from the moment it was pitched, and its review corpus never lets it off the hook. "Planescape" or its shorthand appears 103 times across the 100 most-helpful negative reviews. One of the most-upvoted, from a backer who paid $250 to the original Kickstarter, opens with genuine excitement and years of anticipation before landing on disappointment. Another puts it starkly: "A tragic tale of modern CRPG where all the dreams about a true successor of the greatest CRPG of all time shattered like broken [glass]." This isn't a handful of cranky comparisons — it's the dominant shape of the negative-review corpus.

Checked directly against Planescape's own current numbers

This library reviewed Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition the same day as this review, which makes a direct, current comparison possible rather than relying on old scores:

Both games draw the same core criticism — combat is the weak point of the design — but Planescape's audience treats it as a known, accepted trade-off for the writing. Tides of Numenera's audience is far less forgiving of the same trade-off, and the numbers reflect it plainly.

Combat: the same complaint, worse

"Combat" appears 177 times across this game's 100 most-helpful negative reviews — proportionally more than in Planescape's own corpus. One detailed review sums up a common structure: praise for "mechanics" and "story and setting" followed by specific frustration that the fighting itself feels undercooked relative to the rest of the design. Several reviewers go further and argue the game would be better understood, and better received, if it weren't marketed as an RPG at all: "TToN is not an RPG. It's a story-driven adventure game and should be judged as such," reads one 153-vote review, recommending it strongly on exactly those terms.

What's genuinely good

Set the comparison aside and the underlying ambition is real. The Numenera setting is strange and distinctive in ways few other RPGs attempt, and reviewers who engage with it on its own terms — rather than as a Planescape sequel — describe real investment in its characters and choices. "An excellent game. Don't get this if you're just looking for tactical combat... if you want a story heavy game... [it delivers]," reads one representative positive review. The writing itself is rarely the target of criticism even in negative reviews; it's specifically the mechanical layer around it that draws the complaints.

Depth and completion

Achievement data shows a steep drop-off: the top achievement sits at 77.9%, and the median across 52 achievements is just 9.75%, with several deep story-branch achievements under 1%. That's consistent with a slow, choice-heavy RPG that a real share of buyers start and don't finish — similar in shape to what this library found in Planescape's own achievement data, though slightly steeper here.

Value

At NZ$43.49 with only two DLC packs and no in-app purchases, monetisation isn't the issue here — the honest value question is entirely about whether the writing and setting are enough to carry you past the combat, which is a matter of taste this review can inform but not settle for you.

Verdict

Torment: Tides of Numenera is a genuinely ambitious, narratively distinctive RPG that never escaped the shadow of the game it was funded to spiritually succeed — and checked directly against this library's Planescape: Torment review, the gap in reception (94.4% versus 70.2% lifetime) is real, not just a matter of nostalgia. Buy it for the Numenera setting and the writing specifically, with realistic expectations about the combat, rather than as a substitute for Planescape itself.