Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Interview

Industry Gamers chatted up Big Huge Games’ Ken Rolston, which some of you may know for his work on The Elder Scrolls III and IV and on pen-and-paper role-playing games, on his team’s upcoming Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, with questions on his return to the game industry, what Reckoning brings to the table when it comes to role-playing titles, and, of course, the obligatory Skyrim comparison. Here’s a snip:

IG: Are you at all concerned about the impact Skyrim could have on Reckoning? You won’t ship yours for a few months, but Skyrim may keep your audience engrossed for quite some time. Or perhaps you feel it will raise awareness of the genre and perhaps help Reckoning?

KR: I suspect that they won’t know that they want something else. That’s always the challenge when you make something that hasn’t been made before, and usually it’s opinion leaders who will stray outside or color outside the lines and say, (Hey! This is cool. You should be playing this.) I think that’s the way, very often, revolutionary products work and we’re intending to be revolutionary in that sense. But I think anybody who works in the industry and who is concerned about releasing a product into the current bloodbath of blockbuster releases, it would be disingenuous to say that I didn’t notice, but at the same time it’s absolutely true that I don’t feel uncomfortable at all.

I know our game is wonderful, because I play it and actually I feel a lot more emotional concern for the younger people working here who haven’t been everywhere and done everything, who might really care about that stuff and really – this is their first game, so this is a big deal for them. From my point of view, a really good game always finds its audience, and role playing games more so than others because they have long shelf lives, because when you start playing them, you’re going to end up playing them forever unless they’re terrible. So I think I probably just have a far too adult and mature attitude about the whole thing.

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IG: What are your thoughts on the state of RPG gaming? It seems like RPG elements are finding their way into games that aren’t really RPGs, and there’s more blending happening. How do you see RPGs evolving?

KR: Well, because I’m probably a Marxist at heart, I’m thinking we’re probably reaching one of the [boon] periods. There are so many different products and they’re all so good, that I have a feeling that sometime in the not too distant future people will be able to look back and say, that was the time when we realized we needed some revolutions and we needed some changes and then maybe the genre will reconceive itself again. But right now, you cannot complain about the variety and quality of stuff. Even in the second and third tier stuff – which I will not be foolish enough to try to characterize things by first, second, and third tier – I’m seeing a lot of quality in things that would’ve been considered B movies in another world. And I don’t know that there are that many RPG fans who are suffering daily because they’re not getting enough games released. I think there are still plenty of fans who would buy a lot more games if they could. They would like us to make more and make them faster than on a 3 year cycle, but I think nonetheless, that they’re getting good quality games on a pretty regular basis.