Dragon’s Dogma Interview

The good folks at Gamasutra have put online a brief interview with CAPCOM’s director Hideaki Itsuno and producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi who are currently working on the open-world fantasy action-RPG Dragon’s Dogma. The interview touches upon CAPCOM’s business strategy, the technical framework of the company, the research done for the title and the challenges in its development. Here’s a sampling:

When I last spoke to you for Devil May Cry 4, there was a lot of discussion about doing extensive research trips for architectural reference, so I was wondering what kind of preparations went into this title.

HI: Yeah, for this game as well, we went all around Europe to actually get a lot of info, especially for the backgrounds and environments in the game. We did a lot of research in Europe that’s helped to try and recreate those in the game.

Are we talking architectural reference or natural reference? Did you actually do any photoing for textures and stuff like that?

HK: Actually, it was a combination of both. We looked at architecture and buildings and things of that nature and also just natural environments as well. We took many pictures, of course, and we tried to recreate those as closely as possible in the game.

HI: For us, if you just use what you have available in Japan, it’s going to feel Japanese in the game. We wanted to make sure we had that authentic feel for the game, and that’s why we went around in Europe and got all that as materials and tried to recreate them in the game.