The Banner Saga is a Viking-themed tactical role-playing video game by Stoic, a trio of indie game developers formerly of BioWare. It was released as a single player campaign, The Banner Saga – the first game of a projected trilogy – on 14 January 2014, as well as a separate free-to-play online multiplayer game, The Banner Saga: Factions, in February 2013. The game is set in a Viking-inspired fantasy setting, chosen by the developers so as to avoid what they considered the "overdone 'elves, dwarves and orcs' dynamic". With a visual style influenced by Eyvind Earle's art for the 1959 Disney film Sleeping Beauty, as well as the work of Ralph Bakshi and Don Bluth, The Banner Saga's art features primarily hand-drawn animation sequences, characters and backgrounds. Factions uses the city of Strand as its main UI, with players selecting different buildings of the city to access various playmodes and functionalities. Additionally, "the city will evolve as the story unfolds".