Tales of Tuscany, the second RPG from Athenian Rhapsody creator Nico Papalia, finally has a release date: February 2, 2027. Publisher Top Hat Studios announced the date alongside a new release date trailer, and the Steam store page now lists the same day. It is a choose-your-own-adventure RPG with bullet-hell battles, starring a tiny, loud and thoroughly chaotic sheep called Lambypoo.
Why it is landing after the holidays
Some fans had expected the game before the end of the year. In a post on the game's Steam page, Papalia explained that QA took longer than planned, and that the team wanted to properly test every feature, including making sure the Japanese, Chinese and Italian text displays correctly. Rather than launch with anything untested, they decided to hold the game until after the holiday season for what Papalia calls a stress-free and smooth launch.
The localisation work has been visible for a while. The demo, which first appeared during Steam Next Fest in June 2026, later picked up Japanese and Italian options. Doyoyo Games, which also handles the Chinese translation, did the Japanese work, and NyanLoc did the Italian. Papalia is Italian and has said that shipping one of his games in Italian, set in a goofy version of Tuscany, is a big moment.
Alongside the Steam version on PC, Top Hat's announcement lists PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android as platforms. The Steam page carries the February 2 date. No price has been announced yet.
A sheep with a grudge
The setup is simple. A wizard with the gloriously silly name The Evil Vizard Thunder Goober has flattened Lambypoo's home purely for his own amusement. Your job is to cross a scrambled-up Tuscany, rescue your scattered cousins and rebuild the village. How you get there is up to you. The game is built around branching choices, and the developer describes huge optional side quests, entire alternate routes and the option to spend an absurd amount of time fishing instead of saving anyone.
Lambypoo's signature move is the Baaa button. In the overworld it does a lot more than bleat: it destroys rocks, cars and buildings, blows up enemies, and works as your general-purpose way of interacting with the world, including talking to people. It sets the tone for a game whose sense of humour runs from cheerfully absurd to openly provocative.
Fight them or befriend them
Battles mix turn-based menus with fast bullet-hell dodging, and every encounter gives you a choice. You can defeat an enemy for experience, or win them over and recruit them. Befriended enemies join your team as playable characters with their own stats and Burst skills, which the developer says changes how you approach later fights. There are rare, alternate-colour versions of every recruitable character too, so shiny hunting is part of the loop.
Befriending usually means playing a minigame instead of attacking. The examples on the store page are a home run derby, carving pumpkins, surfing at the public pool and swatting flies. Some boss fights rewrite the rules entirely. Imagine a WarioWare microgame dropped into the middle of an RPG fight and you are close.
Rhapsodies, challenge runs and Twitch chat
Like Athenian Rhapsody, Tales of Tuscany is designed around replays. Each finished playthrough gives you a Rhapsody, a postcard decorated with stickers that reflect your choices on that run, so no two are alike. You can collect them and trade them with friends around the world, and Papalia says you can even import the Rhapsodies you earned in Athenian Rhapsody and display them alongside the new ones.
For players chasing a harder time, challenge modifiers include a 1HP mode, a No Friends mode that rules out recruiting, and one that swaps every line of text for Wingdings. Streamers get a dedicated feature as well. Connect a Twitch account and viewers turn up in the world as their own Lambypoos with consistent colours and armour. They can spend channel points to help or sabotage the streamer, and vote in periodic polls that change how the run plays out. All of this can be switched off.
What comes next
A free demo is available on Steam now for anyone who wants to try the combat and humour before February. Papalia has also hinted that the full game hides a good number of offline secrets that demo players and testers have not found yet, and points players with questions towards the game's official Discord.
That puts the release date at February 2, 2027 for the Steam version, with Top Hat Studios listing consoles and mobile as well. Wishlisting the Steam page is the easiest way to get a reminder on launch day.
