Jotun announced

Will Dube writes in to announce Jotun, a Norse mythological Zelda-alike in development by Montreal indie studio Thunder Lotus Games.

The premise:

In Jotun, you play Thora, a Norse warrior who has died an inglorious death and must face the challenges of Viking purgatory to prove herself to the Gods and enter Valhalla.

Simple enough. The developers have stated that Jotun will focus on alternating between exploration and combat against huge foes in a structure reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus. As they put it: “Jotun‘s core loop revolves around collecting Runes to summon and fight the jotun, gigantic Norse elementals.” The jotun boss fights are 2D and top-down, though, so perhaps Zelda is the better analog here.

Jotun’s character progression scheme sounds somewhat reminiscent of Zelda as well, with the player gaining new powers as they reach specific locations in the world:

Our progression system is all based on Shrines to the Norse Gods. These Shrines are scattered throughout the world and each one represents a specific God. Each God gives a specific buff to the character.

Although it is clearly quite early in development, that hasn’t stopped the developers from releasing an early teaser trailer showing off Jotun’s art and animation style:

Jotun is being developed for Windows and Mac. Now that its Kickstarter has met its funding goal, the developers estimate that Jotun will be released sometime around September 2015 for Windows and Mac.