Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Roundtable Interview

The folks at RPGamer had the chance to sit at a roundtable interview with some members of the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning team and come back with a transcript of the talk. Here’s a sampling:

What are some of the most unique features of the Amalur setting?

There are a lot of unique and fascinating things about the setting that the team can’t tell us about yet, as they are considered “franchise secrets.” R.A. Salvatore really did write ten thousand years of history, and there’s a huge lore bank that the developers have needed to reference and stay consistent with while developing Reckoning.

The game itself should give the players some hints and whispers of the world’s bigger secrets, and these secrets are designed to be revealed throughout a lengthy series of games made in the setting.

[Ed: As this article was being written, we learned that a single-player sequel to Reckoning has already been confirmed, so 38/Big Huge appears to be following through on this promise.]

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How does the player’s race selection influence the gameplay experience?

The biggest impact that racial choice has on the character is that each race has its own set of ability bonuses that it starts the game with. Rolston’s favourite race is the Varani, who have bonuses to Detect Hidden, Lockpicking, and Mercantile.

Racial choice doesn’t affect the narrative of the game. The developers didn’t want racial choice to lock players in or out of any content, and wanted the questline choices that the player makes to be the thing that NPCs react to, not the cosmetic racial choice from the beginning of the game.

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Will there be a toolset release so that we can make mods?

As Reckoning is the first game in the franchise, the tools aren’t in a state that allows them to be released to the public at this point. That said, the team is working on a PC release of a toolset with basic functionality to aid modders.