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. Below is the full video interview and some excerpts from several topics:
Dual World and Wick Mechanism
“You need to look at it as a whole package. So it’s a game mechanic, but it’s also part of the fantasy. So of course it affects the visuals, but it affects the gameplay, it affects everything. Like the narrative All the same, the characters, everyone involved in it is affected by that.
“We have three gods in the game: the god of Radiance, let’s say, the classic good guy, the angel. You have the god of Rogar, the demon god of Rogar, the Lord of the Fallen, which is Adyr. Then you have the third faction , led by Putrid Mother. That’s basically what happens when someone in this universe dies. What happens to these people. So you actually have this creature that eats the souls of dead people.
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“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’re going to be working in the game world, and you’re going to be exploring. Sometimes you’ll find a blocker, like, ‘Oh shit, I don’t know what to do. 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 You’ll see what’s actually blocking your progress.
“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 cautious when doing this.
With this, what you achieve are two parallel universes. They are like two sides of the same coin. So one can’t live without the other, but at the same time, one is trying to eat the other, so it’s a universe that’s kind of crazy.
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“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 was to create a game, Imagine creating two sides of a game with two layers.
“There’s a part of it that I can’t talk about too much right now, though, because we want to reveal it later. But there is, when you’re in Umbral, we tease that when you’re in Umbral, there’s an enemy hunting you down. In fact, you The longer you stay in there, the more dangerous these enemies are. So that part is actually procedural. So with this, what we want to give you is, in this type of game, take care of your learning Curve, that’s very important. So it’s like when you get to 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 short, in Umbral, how do we build it, we thought, what would these people’s nightmare worlds look like in this world? For us, it’s like you have Axiom, the real world, it’s screwed up Yeah, right? Like everybody, you know, people aren’t like, let’s say, their best mental state. And then what are these people’s nightmares, right? So that’s why it looks so scary.”
Graphics and Performance
“Currently, it’s running at 60 fps in PS5 and Xbox Series X modes, 30 fps in Performance mode, and 30 fps in Quality mode. All are of high quality standard.
“We pair with the best technology. We pair with Epic to use Unreal Engine 5. So we’re squeezing their technology. On top of that, we add our own technology layer. For example, for two worlds meta. 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 sides. With one button, they can switch between worlds.
creatures and enemies
“The longer the disease appears in Umbral as part of the Umbral Dread. There, you’ll see larger creatures emerge from Umbral. It’s actually an escalation thing.
“So when you start, it’s just the basics. Then as you progress through the game, it gets more dangerous. But the rewards are better. So sometimes you’ll want to stand with your shield and sword In one corner, try to kill those big guys to get stuff.
“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 bosses in the game. We’re talking about 30 in total, with different types and sizes. And then the most spectacular, um, you’re in the trailer See, big spoiled offspring that, you know, are actually as big as 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.
Reboot series to cater to soul 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 passionate about it. When you’re in When working within a genre, there are always parallels, right? We’re not shy about that. Like, yes, we have something that some people might consider 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 yeah, we add our own touches. Sometimes, big things like Umbral, it’s like a paradigm change, like Deathcycle The changes, and then add an extra layer of exploration and what we call detective gameplay, where you have to go around and investigate. In fact, you’ll find little stories in Umbral, you know, events that happened in 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.
