Ladies and gentlemen: Guido Henkel (yes, that Guido Henkel) writes in to announce the development of Deathfire, a 3D, party-based, non-linear, first-person RPG that he’s developing with Marian Arnold (Divine Divinity), André Taulien (Divine Divinity) and Thu-Lieu Pham (Thorvalla).

Deathfire will feature real-time, grid-based exploration of the world mixed with turn-based combat. Henkel writes:

The game uses a stepped first person perspective, but unlike “Dungeon Master” or more recently “Legends of Grimrock,” this is not a linear monster bashing dungeon crawl. We are creating a world that is richer and uses a complete role-playing engine, hearkening back a lot more at games I created in the past, particularly the “Realms of Arkania” trilogy. Despite this general real-time approach to the environment, the combat system will be a turn-based system that, once again, dives deeper into role playing elements than any real time game possibly could. We have not revealed any details about combat at this time, but I would like you to know that it will be an engaging experience that offers plenty of options for the player.

Deathfire is planned to feature six races, eight classes, and a suite of 34 character traits that you can use when creating your four-character party.

On top of that, your party will have two slots for recruitable NPCs–Henkel promises that there will be “a lot of inter-character activity….It was one of the hallmarks when we designed ‘Planescape: Torment’ and I’ll definitely stick to that because it opens up a wealth of cool opportunities for us as game designers.” It has not yet been decided whether this will be an interactive system, or whether the game will handle characters taunting and interacting with one another automatically.

Deathfire is being developed in Unity for Windows and Mac, with a Linux version to be released either concurrently or shortly thereafter. Henkel says they’re loosely targeting Deathfire for a 2014 release.