Lords of the Fallen launched at Summer Game Fest a month ago, and recently at Gamelab Barcelona we were lucky enough to chat with Hexworks’ executive producer Saúl Gascón to learn a lot more about the highly anticipated action RPG, including the deep story, the dual world and the differentiating mechanics. Here is the entire video interview and some excerpts from several of the topics:
The shared world and the lamp’s core mechanics
“You have to look at this as a whole package. This is a game mechanic, but also part of the fantasy. Of course it affects the visuals, but it also affects the gameplay, it affects everything. The narrative, the characters, everyone involved is affected by this.
“We have three gods in the game: The god of Radiance, which is, let’s say, the classic good guys, the angels. You have the god of Rogar, the demon god of rogar, the fallen lord, which is Adyr. And then you have a third faction, which is led by the Putrid Mother. And this is basically what happens when someone in this universe dies. What happens to those people. So you actually have a creature that eats the souls of the people who die.
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“So what are you there? You, the player, are dead a long time ago, and you’re being revived by the lamp. What is the lamp? The lamp is, no spoilers, but the lamp is part of this goddess. It gives you the ability to travel between the world of the living, Axiom, and the world of the dead, Umbral.
“So how does this affect the game? Pragmatically, you’re going to work around the game world, you’re going to explore. And sometimes you’re going to hit a block, like ‘oh shit, I don’t know where to go’. Then you can raise the lamp, and with it you can look over to the other side, look around and say “ah, there’s a road over there”, or a door, or an enemy, or whatever it is. Then you see what actually blocking your progress.
“And then at any time you can decide for the lamp to consume your body and become part of the Umbral, or go to the Umbral realm. But there is a risk, because if you die in the Umbral, it is the true death. So you must always be careful when you want to do this.
What you achieve with this is two parallel universes. They are like two sides of the same coin. One cannot live without the other, but at the same time one tries to eat the other, so it’s a bit of a crazy universe.
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“And then you’re going to go around, pick up your lamp and see what’s on the other side.
But you have to be careful, because when you use the lamp, the creatures on the other side see you too. So they can pull you in at any time”.
A handcrafted map with a procedural twist
“We wanted to offer a very, let’s say, handcrafted and polished experience. So we designed and built everything by hand. The two worlds, one on top of the other. So you can imagine how difficult it is to make one game , imagine making two sides of a game with two, let’s say, teams.
“However, there is one part that I can’t say much about, because we will reveal that later. But it is actually that while you are in the Umbral, we will tease you that there are enemies chasing you when you are in the Umbral . And actually, the longer you stay there, the more dangerous those enemies become. So that part is actually procedural. What we want to give you in this kind of game is to take care of your learning curve, which is very important. So it’s like you get to a level and then you die.”
“Then you learn the patterns of the enemies, where they are placed, etc. And that allows you to advance little by little. But when you go to the Umbral, there’s a random chance of things appearing when they shouldn’t, when you don’t expect it. So it plays a bit on the horror genre.
“In short, in Umbral, we built it so we thought, What would the nightmare world of these people in this world look like? To us, it’s like Axiom, the real world, which is just fucking awesome, right? Everyone is, you know, people are not, let’s say, in their best mental state. And what are the nightmares of these people, right? So that’s why it looks so terrible”.
Graphics and performance
“Right now it’s 60 fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X in Performance mode, and 30 fps in Quality mode. But both experiences have a high quality limit when it comes to graphics.
“We’ve chosen the best technology on the market. We’ve partnered with Epic to work with Unreal Engine 5. So we’re leveraging their technology. In addition, we’ve added our own layers of technology. For example, for the duality between the two the worlds. What we do with that is, in the editor, we can design the two levels, so artists or designers can just go in and create what they need for both sides. And with a button, they can switch between the two worlds.”
Creatures and enemies
“As part of the Umbral Dread, this disease that appears the longer you stay on the Umbral. You’ll see bigger creatures emerge from the Umbral. And it’s something that actually escalates.
“So when you start, it’s just the basics. As you progress through the game, it gets more dangerous and more dangerous. But the rewards are also better. So sometimes you want to be there in a corner with your shield and your sword to try to kill the big guys to get stuff.
“Also, everywhere we have what we call Natives. So each area, each zone is very important to us. We have built each level with its own theme and its own inhabitants. So there you will get a great variety from smaller enemies to large , problematic meetings.
“And then of course we have the icing on the cake, which are the bosses, so we have quite a few bosses in our game. We’re talking about 30 in total, of different types and sizes. And the most spectacular ones, as you saw in the trailer, are the large, spoiled offspring that are actually the size of a building.
“In this world, nobody cares about you. This is something very important. Because the thing is, you’re not the hero, right? You can be the hero, of course, but that’s usually your goal. So when you find these creatures, they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re, you know, like you on a normal Sunday, you’re there having a barbecue or something, and then a guy comes up with a sword, ‘hello!'” You think: ‘What the hell?’. So that’s what we’re trying to create with these bosses: they’re in their ecosystem, doing their thing, and you’re there disrupting them.”
Rebooting the series and catering to the soulslike fans
“It’s important to note that everyone at Hexworks is a big fan of this genre, action RPGs in general, but Souls in particular. So everyone on the team is very passionate about this. When you’re working with a genre, there’s always going to be similarities, not right? And we’re not shy about it. Yes, we have things that some might think are similar to any FromSoftware game, but also to other action role-playing games, like Final Fantasy or any other RPG.
“Because at the end of the day, we want to create an experience that satisfies those players who want that kind of experience. But yeah, we put our own stamp on it. Sometimes with these big things like Umbral, which is like a paradigm shift, like a changing the death cycle, and then we add an extra layer of exploration and what we call detective play, you’ll actually find little bits of history in the Umbral, you know, events that happened in the past and so on.
But on top of this, we also have accessibility. We have worked a lot on the controls: “Okay, how can we make it better?”. And then we have worked on many small quality of life details here and there, things we have done completely differently. We didn’t set out to make a game like this, but we’re all drinking from the same fountain.”
The new Lords of the Fallen launches on October 13 on PS5, Xbox Series and PC.
2023-07-15 14:00:00
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