2023-07-15 12:02:09
Lords of the Fallen made waves at Summer Game Fest a month ago, and recently at Gamelab Barcelona we had the pleasure of catching up with Hexworks Executive Producer Saúl Gascón to learn more about the highly anticipated dark fantasy action RPG information, including its deep lore, dual worlds and differentiated mechanics. Here’s the full video interview and some excerpts from several topics: Dual worlds and wick mechanics “You need to see it as a whole package. So it’s a game mechanic, but it’s also part of the fantasy. So of course it will affects the visuals, but it affects the gameplay, it affects everything. Like the narrative, the characters, everyone involved in it is affected by that.” We have three gods in the game: God of Radiance, let’s say , the classic good guy, Angel. You have the god of Rogar, the demon god of Rogar, the fallen lord, this is Adyr. Then you have the third faction, led by the Putrid Mother. That’s basically what happens when someone in this universe dies. What will happen to these people. So actually you have this creature which eats the souls of dead people. Here’s an ad: “So what are you doing there? You as a player, you’re a long-dead person, and you’re resurrected by the lamp. What is the lamp? The lamp is, no spoilers, but the lamp is part of this goddess. Basically allowing you to travel between Axiom, the world of the living, and Umbral, the world of the dead.” So how does that affect gameplay? So pragmatically, basically you’ll be working in the game world, and you’ll be exploring. Sometimes you find a blocker, like, “Oh shit, I don’t know where to go.” Then you can hold up your lamp, and peek the other side, look around, and say, ‘Aha, there’s a way,’ or a door, or an enemy, or whatever. So you’ll see what’s actually holding you back. “Then you can at any point decide to have the lamp consume your body and become part of Umbral, or go to the Umbral realm. But this is risky, because if you die in Umbral, that’s true death. So when you You always need to be careful when doing this. With this, you achieve two parallel universes. They are like two sides of the same coin. So one cannot live without the other, but at the same time, one is trying to eat the other. One person, so it’s a bit of a crazy universe. Here’s an ad: “Then you’re going to walk around, grab your lamp, and see what’s on the other side. But you need to be careful, because whenever you use the lamp, the creatures on the other side will also see you. So they can pull you in anytime.” Handcrafted maps with stylized variations “We wanted to provide a very, say, handcrafted and polished experience. So we designed and built everything by hand. Two worlds, one on top of the other. So You can imagine how hard it is to create a game, imagine creating two sides of the game with two layers.” There’s a part I can’t talk about too much right now, though, because we want to reveal it later. But there are, when you’re in Umbral, we tease that, when you’re in Umbral, there are enemies hunting you down. In fact, the longer you’re there, the more dangerous these enemies become. So this part is actually procedural. So with that, what we want to give you is that in this type of game, it’s very important to take care of your learning curve. So like when you reach a certain level, you die. “Then you learn about enemy patterns, where they’re placed, etc. That allows you to progress bit by bit. But when you’re going to Umbral, there’s this random chance that things show up when they shouldn’t , when you wouldn’t expect them. So it’s basically digging a little bit at the horror genre.” In a nutshell, in Umbral, how we build it, we thought, the nightmare world of these people in this world would what does it look like To us, it’s like you have Axiom, the real world, it’s screwed up, right? Like everybody, you know, people aren’t like, let’s say, their best mental state. And then what’s a nightmare for these people, right? So that’s why it looks so scary.” Graphics and performance “Currently, it runs at 60 fps in PS5 and Xbox Series X modes, 30 fps in Performance mode, and 30 fps in Quality mode. There are high-quality standards in terms of visual effects.”We paired it with the best technology. We paired with Epic to use Unreal Engine 5. So we’re squeezing their technology. On top of that, we added our own technology layer. For example, for the duality of two worlds. So basically, what we do is, in the editor, we can design two levels, so an artist or a designer can go in and create whatever they need for both parties. With a button, they can switch between the two worlds. Creatures and Enemies “As part of Umbral Dread, the longer the disease appears in Umbral. There, you’ll see larger creatures emerge from Umbral. It’s actually an upgrade thing.” So when you start , and this is just the bare minimum. Then it gets more and more dangerous as you progress through the game. But the rewards are also better. So sometimes you’ll want to stand in a corner with your shield and sword and try to kill the big guys to get things. “On top of that, everywhere we go, we have what we call Natives. So every area, every area is very important to us. We build each level with our own theme and inhabitants .So at this point, you’re going to have everything from smaller enemies to really huge problematic encounters.”And then, of course, we have the cherry on top, which is the boss, so we have a lot of boss. We’re talking about 30 in total, of varying types and sizes. And then the most spectacular, um, you see in the trailer, the big spoiled offspring, you know, are actually as big as the buildings. In this world, no one cares about you. This is a very important thing. Because it’s like, you’re not a hero, right? You can be a hero, yes, of course, but that’s usually your goal. So when you find these creatures, they’re doing their thing. They’re, you know, like you’re on a normal Sunday and you’re there, you know, doing a BBQ or whatever, and a guy shows up with a sword, ‘Hello! So you think, ‘What the fuck? That’s what we’re trying to create with these bosses: They’re in their ecosystem, doing their thing, and you’re there to interrupt them. Rebooting the series, catering to Souls fans “It’s important to point out that everyone at Hexworks, we’re big fans of the genre, action RPGs in general, but Souls in particular. So it’s like everyone on the team is really excited about this Passion the same way. When you work in a genre, there are always parallels, right? We’re not shy about that. Like, yeah, we have something that some people might think is similar to any FromSoftware game, but Also any other action RPG, like Final Fantasy or any other RPG.” Because in the end, we want to bring an experience that satisfies players who want that experience. But yes, we added our own touches. Sometimes, big things like Umbral, it’s like a paradigm shift, like a death cycle change, and then you add an extra layer of exploration and what we call detective gameplay where you need to poke around. In fact, you’ll find little stories in Umbral, you know, events from the past, et cetera. But most importantly, we also have accessibility. We did a lot of work on the controls, like, ‘Okay, how can we make this better? And then there’s the little quality-of-life details here and there, where we do things completely differently. We don’t have a goal like, let’s make a game that’s close to this, but we all drink from the same fountain. The new Lords of the Fallen launches October 13 on PS5, Xbox Series, and PC.
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