The Arkh Project announced

The Arkh Project is a new 3D action RPG currently in the early stages of development “by individual people who would like to see more representation for the underrepresented.” Specifically, these anonymous individuals are making the game for the primary purpose of creating an RPG with “queer people and people of color as main characters.”

In all honesty, while I would quite like to see minorities receive more representation in RPGs (to say nothing of games generally), this actually made me cringe a little. An RPG needs to have an interesting story, interesting mechanics, or (ideally) both in order to be compelling. “My RPG is going to have an all-minority cast” really isn’t enough.

Luckily, after digging around their site a little, I discovered that The Arkh Project does have a plot premise that sounds like it could actually be quite interesting if handled well:

Follow the story of a deity bored with life amongst the gods, who leaves to find a purpose in life and seek out a lost love. Reincarnate your deity onto numerous worlds, live through the lives of others and gain life experience…but watch your God Energy, you need a lot of it to continue your astral journey.

Fight monsters only you can see, sometimes around very particular civilians who refuse to get the heck out of your way. Collect world-specific plants to enhance your healing items, and acquire numerous different kinds of weapons and scrolls from all different cultures.

The game draws inspiration from real mythos, from all sorts of different cultures, and each world reflects the culture it draws from.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any mention on the site of what sort of mechanics the game is going to have, and the developers are keeping tight-lipped, unwilling to divulge anything more specific than “It will, however, have a focus on the narrative/story, and be an action-RPG.”

The game is currently very early in development–as in, concept art stage. The devs say that more information will be made available at the end of the month, so if the project interests you, you may want to check in on their website in a couple of weeks.