Tässä kaikki, mitä sinun tulee tietää Lords of the Fallenin tarinasta ja sen pelattavuudesta

Lords of the Fallen esiintyi Summer Game Festissä kuukausi sitten, ja Gamelab Barcelonassa tartuimme hihasta Hexworksin vastaavaa tuottajaa Saúl Gascónia oppiaksemme enemmän odotetusta, synkkää fantasiaa sisältävästä toimintaroolipelistä. Halusimme tietää sen syvästä historiasta, sen kaksoismaailmasta, sekä sen eroavista mekaniikoista. Tässä koko videohaastattelu ja muutamia otteita useista aiheista:

Kaksoismaailma ja lampun ydinmekaniikka

"You need to see this as a holistic package. So this is a gameplay mechanic, but also it's part of the fantasy. So it affects visuals, of course, but it affects gameplay, it affects everything. Like narrative, characters, everybody 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 the Rogar, the demon god of the 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 somebody in this universe dies. What happens to these people. So actually you have this creature that eats the souls of the people that dies.

So what are you there? You as a player, you are a long-time dead, and you get resurrected by the lamp. What is the lamp? The lamp is, no spoilers, but the lamp is a part of this goddess. And basically 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 gameplay? So pragmatically speaking, basically you're going to be working around the game world, you're going to be exploring. And sometimes you will find a blocker, like, 'oh shit, I don't know where to go'. So then you can raise your lamp, and with that just peek on the other side, look around and say, 'aha, there is a pathway there', or a door, or an enemy, or whatever it is. So you will see what is actually blocking your progress.

And then you can decide at any point for the lamp to consume your body and become part of Umbral, or travel to the Umbral realm. But that has a risk, because then if you die in Umbral, that's the true death. So you always need to be cautious when you want to do this.
With this, what you achieve is two parallel universes. They are like the 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, so it's a bit of a crazy universe-

And then you're going to go around, pick your lamp, see what's on the other side.
But you need to be cautious, because whenever you use the lamp, the creatures on the other side also see you. So they can, at any time, pull you in".

Käsintehty kartta, joka sisältää erilaisia menettelytapoja

"We wanted to offer a very, let's say, handcrafted and polished experience. So we've designed and built everything by hand. The two worlds, one on top of the other. So you can imagine how hard it is to create one game, imagine creating two sides of a game with two, let's say, layers.

Now, there is a part, though, that I cannot talk much about it, because we want to reveal it later on. But there is indeed, while you are in Umbral, we teased that there are enemies that pursue you when you are in Umbral. And in fact, the longer you stay there, the more dangerous these enemies are going to be. So that part is actually procedural. So then with this, what we want to give you is that in this type of game, is taking care of your learning curve, which is very important. So it's like you get to a level, you die."

Then you learn the patterns of the enemies, where they're placed, etc. And this allows you to advance bit by bit. But when you're going to Umbral, there is this random chance that things appear when they shouldn't, when you would not expect them. So it's basically tapping a bit on the horror genre a bit.

In short, in Umbral, how we've built it is that we thought like, how would the nightmare world of these people in this world look like? For us, it's like you have Axiom, the real world, which is fucked up, right? Like everybody is, you know, people are not like, let's say, on their best mental condition. And then what are the nightmares of these people, right? So that's why it looks so horrific".

Grafiikka ja suorituskyky

"Right now, it performs at 60 fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X in Performance mode, and 30 fps on Quality mode. But both experiences have a high quality bar in terms of visuals.

We paired with the best technology out there. We paired with Epic to work with Unreal Engine 5.
So we're squeezing their technology. On top of this, we've added our own layers of tech. For instance, for the duality of the two worlds. So basically, what we do with that is that, in the editor, we can design the two levels, so artists or designers can just go in and create whatever they need for both sides. And with a button, they can switch between the two worlds."

Erilaiset otukset ja viholliset

"As part of the Umbral Dread, this illness that appears the longer you stay in Umbral. There you will see bigger creatures appearing from Umbral. And that's something that is actually escalated.
So when you start, it's only the most basic. Then as you advance in the game, it gets more and more dangerous. But the rewards are also better. So sometimes you will want to be there in a corner with your shield and your sword to try to kill those big guys to get stuff.

On top of this, we have all over the place, we have what we call the natives. So every area, every zone is very important for us. We've built every level with its own thematic and its own inhabitants. So on that, you will have a big variety from smaller enemies to actually huge problematic encounters.

And then, of course, we have the cherry on top, which are the bosses, so we feature quite a lot of bosses in our game. We're talking around 30 in total, with different types and sizes. And then the most spectacular ones, well, you saw in the trailer, the big spoiled progeny that actually, you know, is as big as a building.

In this world, nobody cares about you. This is something that's very important. Because the thing is like, you are not the hero, right? You can become the hero, yes, of course, but that's your goal usually. So when you find these creatures, they are doing their thing. They are, you know, like you on a normal Sunday, you are there, you know, doing a barbecue or whatever, and a guy appears with a sword, 'hello!' So you're like, 'what the fuck?' So this is what we try to create with these bosses: they are in their ecosystem, doing their thing, and you are there interrupting them."

Sarjan käynnistäminen uudelleen ja kattaus soulslike-faneja varten

"It's important to remark that everybody at Hexworks, we are huge fans of this genre, action RPGs in general, but Souls-like particularly. So like everybody in the team is very passionate about this. When you're working in a genre, there is always going to be similarities, right? And we don't shy about it. Like, yes, we have things that some people might think are similar to any FromSoftware game, but also any other action RPG, like Final Fantasy or any other RPG.

Because at the end, we want to bring a experience that satisfies the players that want that type of experience. But yes, we add our own touch. Sometimes with these big things like the Umbral, which is like a change of paradigm, like change of the death cycle, and then adding an extra layer of exploration and what we call detective gameplay, You need to investigate around. In fact, you will find small pieces of story in Umbral, you know, events that happened in the past, et cetera.

But on top of this, we also have accessibility. We worked a lot on the controls, like, 'okay, how can we make it better?' And then a lot of small quality of life details here and there, things that we did just completely different. We were not having as an objective, like, let's do a game that is close to this, but we all drink from the same fountain."

Uusi Lords of the Fallen julkaistaan ​​13. lokakuuta PS5:lle, Xbox Seriesille ja PC:lle.