Hunted: The Demon’s Forge Interview

Video Games Daily has a four-page interview with InXile president Matthew Findley on Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, with creative director Michael Kaufmann and COO Brian Fargo also piping in at the beginning.

VideoGamesDaily: Matthew, Michael, Brian thanks for the demo today. We like the idea of bringing back the classic dungeon RPG, and we thought the game looked very good in motion. On the other hand, we were a little taken aback by the similarities with Gears of War and Army of Two. Can you talk to us about that?

Matthew Findley: There are two parts to it. One, bringing back the dungeon crawl, for sure we love it, we grew up with it, for the same reason that I think you’re gravitating towards it. But we have to recognise that today’s gameplay is different than it was 10 years ago, and so their metaphors for what their style of gameplay is are different. It’s more console, it’s action-oriented, et cetera.

We purposefully want to give you something so when you pick up the controller, right away you’re comfortable you get it, you know how it works, basically, and then we start to take you in another direction. So you say ‘˜yeah, boom, a cover system, it’s medieval Gears of War’ like you said, but then all of a sudden you get into exploration, puzzles, melee is a very big part, the fact that the characters are not clones of each other, debuffing each other. It really takes it to a much deeper experience.

Because in a lot of those products, you’re just running, running, running this isn’t that kind of pacing, we have areas like that but there are other areas that are not like that. So we recognised that there’s a different game role today, and we’d like to take you where you’re comfortable.

On a kind of tangent, I use Age of Empires as an example at first, when you play, you say ‘˜this is just like Warcraft, it’s exactly the same’. But then you start putting up walls and castles, the game comes into itself. I loved Age of Empires, and by the time I was into it, it was not Warcraft. But in the beginning it felt just like it.

Michael Kaufmann: There are two main things that differentiate us from a co-op point of view. One is we’re the first ones to have this concept of being able to switch which character you’re playing at checkpoints. The reason we’re the first ones to do that, is we’re the first ones to have characters that are actually different from each other.

Each character has specific strengths and weaknesses, and how you play as Caddick is very different to how you play as Ilara. What comes from that is needing to use strategy, because the enemies each have their own strengths and weaknesses that play against your strengths and weaknesses you end up with this rock-paper-scissors thing, trying to figure out with an enemy what is the right way to roshambo them.

Findley: It’s a very Zelda kind of thing.

Kaufmann: Right. And adding in ‘˜co-op at a distance’ makes a huge difference: we really disliked the feeling of claustrophobic feeling of the modern co-op game. Most co-op things I have to be standing right next to you to do them. They were cool, but it was just it made us feel we always had to be right there.

All the environments in our game have been designed and all the skills in our game have been designed to allow the player to do co-op at a distance, and encourage, reward the player for doing co-op at a distance. You saw the ice spell, being able to regenerate from across the room, and all the environments having multiple levels where you can go upstairs and get cover.

Findley: Using the environment is a true piece of your strategy and tactics, taking the high ground, things like that.

Brian Fargo: I just want to say, we welcome the comparison [with Gears and Army of Two]. We’re not shying away from it at all. A big part of it is the genre. You don’t realise how powerful that is. You could take science fiction and World War II, they’re completely different. A first person shooter in science fiction versus one in World War II is a different experience.

We want to bring that fantasy to this action genre. We want to combine those, and we think that’s going to be really fresh and really strong. So we’re excited about that, and then we have all the unique aspects of the game plus a very robust melee system, which is very different to both those games.

Findley: Yeah, the demo isn’t exactly representative those areas were specifically called out to make certain points. It doesn’t really reflect the percentage balance and weight of the thing, you can’t look out for that one.

Fargo: There is a deeper story thread that goes through the world, where you’ll have the opportunity to talk to spirits and stuff like that. That’s going to be up to the player, how deep you want to get into it.

[Ed: At this point Fargo and Kaufmann were called away by PR staff for another set of interviews. Curse Bethesda’s even-handed attitude to the press!]

Findley: About the depth of the product, one of the things is puzzles for example. In the 90s, we could give you a puzzle, and if you couldn’t finish it, you were stuck. You’re dead in the water. You’d have to go find a guide to help you or whatever. You can’t do that any more, but that doesn’t mean you get rid of puzzles. What you need to do is make it so they can always move forward, but we can still give you puzzles of varying difficulty and what we do is reward you for that stuff.

For me that’s just an example of a twist, of how you need to recognise today’s player, but that doesn’t mean. Because I love the magic mouth and the riddles, ‘˜what the heck’s he talking about’, and I love the fact that there are going to be people who say ‘˜I can’t figure it out,’ but we didn’t stop you. And then you can go online and do whatever, meet with your buddies and we’ll have some really complicated ones and stuff that’s fun stuff. I think that’s just a microcosm of the difference.

In the old days, we used to not let you save the game unless you made it a certain point you could be five hours in and we’ll wipe out your progress. Well we can’t do that any more, but we’ll have our versions of that. Checkpoints are a version of that.

VGD: What would you say is the balance between combat and puzzles in this game, in rough percentages?

Findley: You know, probably 70-30 with combat in the lead, because that’s what people spend the most time doing. Even when you go and explore, what are you doing? You’re finding things to make you more robust in combat. Even classic Bard’s Tale you were in combat most of the time. So I don’t think it’s that different. But it’s the fact that you can stop, and look around and explore and think ‘˜is that a secret door back there?’ That’s the magic of it.