Design Brief

Setting:
The game takes place in a fictional, low fantasy world reminiscent of medieval Europe. As such, it encompasses and takes influence from the cultures, technologies and peoples from the year 800 A.D to the year 1500 A.D. The principal setting would take place in the borderlands between a kingdom and an empire, both on land and at sea. There would be many cities to explore, each with different cultures, as well as large rural areas dotted with villages and farms.

Story Line:
The main story is based around the second son of a powerful duke within the kingdom. As the second son, he is not expected to inherit much of his fathers lands and titles. As such, he sets off with his own gang as a mercenary/privateer in the service of the king and many other nobles. The first act would be centered around the character starting a war with the empire under orders from the king. It would be based on the battlegrounds and be highly combat based. The second act would focus on the character inheriting some titles and staying largely away from fights, dealing with the characters personal life, as the war grinds down. The third and final act would contain plots and betrayals, as well as culminating in a large battle.
There will be many different characters, all with their own motives, some friends, some enemies, some posing as friends, some posing as enemies. Many just do not care about you with careful neutrality, others could end up making it their life's work to destroy you.
Some side quests would be available, although they would be more akin to tasks. Some may be necessary to advance the overall story, but others would just be there to add character and flavour to the questline.

Gameplay:
This game will chiefly be open-world and role-playing, with quite a lot of action put in there. Your character would be largely pre-designed, however there would be some elements that the player would be able to change.  The game follows the players character as they explore the world and follow the story line and the various quests/tasks that they can find out there. It will feature skill trees and the option to level up the character, which gives them better abilities to combat the various enemies. It would also feature an enemy scaling system, so you would be constantly fighting level 5 enemies at level 30. The game would be shot from a third-person perspective throughout, and would feature many cut-scenes to progress the story along. The combat system would try to be as realistic as possible, but may contain some patterns to make it more visually appealing. Having the AI be as smart as possible is a must for the game, as it greatly increases the combat difficulty and how the NPC's react to the players actions, which in turn, makes the game much more enjoyable to the user. Dialogue and choices would have a profound affect on peoples opinions of you, as well as the overall ending of the game.