Project Eternity Interviews

We have rounded up a couple of recent interviews with the folks at Obsidian, and, as you can imagine, they focus on their latest project, which is also probably the best received in quite a while, Project Eternity, the Kickstarter for an Infinity Engine-like game that has almost reached 200% funding by now and doesn’t seem anywhere close to stopping.

Penny Arcade talked with Adam Brennecke, project director and apparently the man who pitched the project internally, and also offers an earlier version of the latest concept art:

Little is known about Project Eternity at this point. Brennecke told the Penny Arcade Report there isn’t even a story yet, just an abstract collection of topics the team would like to discuss and lore into which they’d like to dig. Brennecke said that at its core, Project Eternity is about the soul and the state of life vs. the state of death.

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Brennecke talked about Project Eternity exploring mature themes, though the studio’s definition of (mature) doesn’t necessarily mean sex and gore. Brennecke’s example was racism. Reading through the Kickstarter updates, there’s some hints of how that could play out on reincarnated souls. (…souls are subject to (fracturing) over generations, transforming in myriad ways, and not quite. working right. Some cultures and individuals place a high value on (strong) souls, souls with a (pure) lineage, (awakened) souls that remember past lives, (traveled) souls that have drifted through the divine realms, or those that co-exist with other souls in one body. However, the opposite is also true, resulting in negative discrimination and sometimes outright violence.)

Although they’re not ready to share it just yet, Brennecke told me he saw the first screenshot of the game the day we spoke. Even he was impressed. (It looks amazing.)

While GamrReview has a more traditionally-formatted interview with Tim Cain:

Chris: Working on any project that you’re passionate about is a real thrill, but what’s the most exciting thing about working on Project Eternity?

Tim: For me, it’s working with Chris and Josh, who have made some terrific games in the past, and this time I get to make one with them. And we get to work on a single-player, isometric CRPG, which is our favorite type of game to make and to play.

Chris: Your team is brimming with talent and has worked on some huge titles in the past. How will all that experience help shape Project Eternity?

Tim: Together, we have designed multiple combat systems, invented rules for countless non-combat abilities, and made hundreds of hours of content. We have a good idea of what is fun in these kinds of games, and we plan to lay it on in spades in this new game. And while our past games have had some rough edges, James Joyce called mistakes the “portals of discovery”. We know what to avoid doing again.

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Chris: While Project Eternity is about taking RPGs back to their roots, will you be looking to change things up and tweak that classic formula at all?

Tim: Certainly we plan to make changes. We are not the same designers that we were five, ten or even twenty years ago, and we want the game to reflect that. Besides, there are some rough edges around all of the games we are being inspired by, so we plan to make some improvements along the way. As long as we keep to the spirit of those earlier games, we will be happy and we hope you will be too.